Whale meat seller sets up third unmanned store in Japan

An unmanned Kujira Store recently opened in Yokohama to offer whale sashimi, whale bacon, whale skin, whale steak, and canned whale meat via three vending machines.

Most of the meat comes from whales caught off Japan's northeastern coast.

Product prices range from 1,000 yen to 3,000 yen.

The Yokohama location is the third to launch in the Japanese capital region. Two other Kujira Stores of Kyodo Senpaku Co. were introduced in Tokyo earlier this year.

According to the operator, sales in the new vending machines have gotten off to a good start.

Kyodo Senpaku hopes to set up vending machines at 100 locations nationwide in five years, according to company spokesperson Konomu Kubo. Next month, a fourth store is to open in Osaka.

The vending machines are set up near supermarkets, where whale meat is usually unavailable, to cultivate demand.

Major supermarket chains have largely stayed away from whale meat to avoid protests by anti-whaling groups.

Anti-whaling protests have subsided since Japan terminated its much-criticized research hunts in the Antarctic, but conservationists are worried that opening the stores could be a step toward expanded whaling.

Nanami Kurasawa, head of the Iruka & Kujira (Dolphin & Whale) Action Network, the issue is not the vending machines but what it may lead to.

Kurasawa noted the whaling operator is already asking for additional catches and to expand whaling outside of the designated waters.