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Snow crab fetches record $46,000 price in Japan

World

Snow crab fetches record $46,000 price in Japan

By EFE-EPA

TOKYO – A snow crab on Thursday fetched a record price of 5 million yen (nearly $46,000) at the season’s first auction at the port of Tottori in western Japan.

A man holds a snow crab that was auctioned for five million yen (almost $46,000) at Tottori port in Tottori, Tottori Prefecture, Japan, 7 November 2019. (EFE-EPA / JIJI PRESS JAPAN OUT / MANILA BULLETIN)

A man holds a snow crab that was auctioned for five million yen (almost $46,000) at Tottori port in Tottori, Tottori Prefecture, Japan, 7 November 2019. (EFE-EPA / JIJI PRESS JAPAN OUT / MANILA BULLETIN)

According to local authorities, the crab, which weighed 1.24 kg (2.7 pounds) and had a 14.6-centimeter (5.7 inches) shell, was caught by a local seller firm Kanemasa Hamashita Shoten, after the fishing season in the region began at midnight Tuesday.

The amount paid for this crab was more than double of the sum of 2 million yen, paid by the same buyer, in the first auction of 2018, which was recognized by the Guinness World Records at the time as the highest figure ever paid for a crab.

The amount is also higher than the 3 million yen fetched on Wednesday by another snow crab – weighing 1.2 kg – in the first auction of the season held in the neighboring town of Shinonsen.

“We came to this year’s first auction hoping that we would bid the world’s highest price again,” a Shoten employee told the local news agency Kyodo.

“I believe it is a good crab filled with meat,” he added.

The crab would be sold in a restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district, the company said.

The snow crab – known as zuwaigani in Japan – is a long and thin-legged crustacean crab which is mainly caught in winters and stands out for its good taste.

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