Innovation? Whale Meat in Vending Machines in Japan, Cheaper Than Bacon in the U.S.

Written by Bruno Teles

Published on 20/09/2023 at 22:12

Máquinas automáticas vendem carne de baleia no Japão (Imagem /Reprodução Kyodo Senpaku)

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Japanese Company Initiative Aims to Popularize Whale Meat, Putting It at the Reach of a Simple Button.

It seems surreal, but it’s true. Kyodo Senpaku Co., a whaling company from Japan, decided to innovate in the way the product is sold.

According to information from the Associated Press, the company installed three vending machines in Yokohama, south of Tokyo. In them, you find everything: from whale sashimi to canned whale.

Cheaper Than Bacon in the U.S.

And the price? Well, it varies between 1,000 yen (about 7.70 dollars) and 3,000 yen (approximately 23 dollars). To give a parameter, the cheapest option is almost the price of a kilogram of bacon in the United States, which costs about 7.21 dollars, according to 2021 data from Statista.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Broadening Horizons: 100 Locations in 5 Years

Konomu Kubo, spokesperson for Kyodo Senpaku, stated that the goal is ambitious. The company plans to open 100 new locations in five years, especially near supermarkets that have stopped selling whale meat, often due to pressure from activists opposed to whaling.

Although it is a millennia-old practice in Japan, whaling is an industry with a quite reduced scale in the country currently. Japan halted commercial whaling in 1987, after joining the International Whaling Commission. However, it continued whaling under the pretext of scientific research, which generated controversy.

Conflicts and Consequences

It’s not just the machines that generate discussion. Nanami Kurasawa, leader of the Iruka & Kujira (Dolphin & Whale) Action Network, warns that the real problem is not the machines, but what they may represent in the future. Critics argue that the “scientific research” would merely be an excuse to continue selling whale meat.

Automatic machines sell whale meat in Japan (Video / Reproduction VOA Türkçe)

About Kyodo Senpaku

Kyodo Senpaku, a Japanese whaling company, launches an innovative marketing strategy by making whale meat available in vending machines.

Located in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, the machines offer a variety of products ranging from whale sashimi to canned meat, with prices comparable to that of a kilogram of bacon in the United States. The initiative aims to expand the whale meat market and circumvent the restrictions in supermarkets, which are often pressured by anti-whaling activists.

Innovation? Whale Meat in Vending Machines in Japan, Cheaper Than Bacon in the U.S.

Japanese Company Initiative Aims to Popularize Whale Meat, Putting It at the Reach of a Simple Button.

Cheaper Than Bacon in the U.S.

Broadening Horizons: 100 Locations in 5 Years

Conflicts and Consequences

About Kyodo Senpaku

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Innovation? Whale Meat in Vending Machines in Japan, Cheaper Than Bacon in the U.S.

Japanese Company Initiative Aims to Popularize Whale Meat, Putting It at the Reach of a Simple Button.

Cheaper Than Bacon in the U.S.

Broadening Horizons: 100 Locations in 5 Years

Conflicts and Consequences

About Kyodo Senpaku

A giant printer called the “Ferrari” of concrete has landed in Latin America and can already build a 120-square-meter house in just 48 hours, making the traditional construction site look like something from the last century.

A British company has installed in the middle of the ocean the world’s first floating platform that generates electricity 24 hours a day from the temperature difference between the surface and the depths of the Atlantic, without relying on wind or sun.

Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has ceased to be a climatic phenomenon and has become a biological system that feeds on itself, with 8,000 kilometers in length, 37 million tons of algae, and scientists confirm that it is now permanent.

China is building an artificial island in the middle of the sea, covering 20 km², to construct the largest offshore airport in the world, the Dalian Jinzhouwan. This $4.3 billion project is anchored on more than 3,000 pillars embedded in the rock beneath the ocean and is scheduled to open in 2035.

A robot named Walter does the work of five bricklayers per hour and can save the construction industry, where the average age of professionals is 46 years and almost no one wants to learn the trade anymore, in the United Kingdom.

Engineers had to pour concrete mixed with tons of ice throughout entire nights in the Dubai desert to erect the Burj Khalifa; any carelessness could clog the pipes half a mile high.

The James Webb telescope spotted a planet 700 light-years from Earth with mornings full of sand clouds and nights with clear skies, the temperature difference between the two hemispheres reaches an impressive 170 degrees.

The race of humanoid robots in factories has truly begun, Hyundai announced that it will deploy more than 25,000 units of Atlas in its production lines starting in 2028, in a partnership that involves Boston Dynamics and training with Google DeepMind.

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