1.2kg snow crab sold for SGD 89,870

[The_King]

I'm gonna name it Snow White.

TOYOOKA, Hyogo -- A snow crab was sold for a prefectural record of 10 million yen (approx. $66,350) during the first auction of the season at a west Japan fishing port on Nov. 6.

The pricey crustacean was sold at the Hamasaka fishing port in the town of Shinonsen. Crab fishing season opened the same day in Sea of Japan waters extending west of Toyama Prefecture.

According to the Hyogo Prefectural Government's Tajima fisheries office, the price beat the prefecture's prior 3.15-million-yen (approx. $20,900) record set at the town of Kami's Shibayama harbor in 2022.

The 1.2-kilogram specimen was a "matsuba-gani," the name given to male snow crabs caught off the Sanin region extending along the southwestern coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. The auction winner was Ryosuke Uemura, the 47-year-old owner of the Ryouriya Uemura restaurant in Kobe's Chuo Ward.

"I wanted to get one on day one, no matter what. The crabs at the Hamasaka fishing port are high quality, and I want that to become better known. I'd like to eat the snow crab with my restaurant's patrons," he said.

Matsuba-gani that meet certain criteria, such as weighing 1.2 kg or over, are specially branded as "Hamasaka-gani kiraboshi" by the Japan Fisheries Cooperatives' Hamasaka branch. Uemura also placed a high bid of 2.5 million yen (roughly $16,600) on a kiraboshi crab on Nov. 7. According to the branch, this is the first time individual crabs have fetched over 1 million yen (about $6,640) two days in a row.