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| D.Grabiel/Environmental Investigation Agency |
A sign promoting Polar Seas Frozen Sushi, the product that True
World Foods is marketing and distributing for Kyokuyo. |
United States consumers could unknowingly be supporting a company vital to Japan's whaling business.
True World Foods, the premier sushi distributor in the United States, recently agreed to market and distribute a product for a company that profits from the slaughter of hundreds of whales annually.
Whale Meat Company Finds Global Market
In 2006, True World announced an agreement with Kyokuyo Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Kyokuyo) to distribute a new line of products called "Polar Seas Frozen Sushi." Kyokuyo is one of Japan's last remaining large producers and distributors of canned whale meat and has a long history in whaling.
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Update |
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In May 2007, Kyokuyo pledged to stop its sale of whale meat in Japan. But we still need to tell the company and its peers to get out of the whaling business altogether. |
The deal marks Kyokuyo's increasing interest in access to foreign markets, and increases the company's responsibility to adhere to international law on whaling.
Kyokuyo keeps Japan's whaling industry afloat by producing and selling whale meat in stores across Japan. True World's relationship with Kyokuyo puts it in a position to either condone whaling, an industry that flouts international conservation measures, or to put a dent in the whaling industry by pressuring Kyokuyo to get out of the whale meat business completely.
By producing and selling whale meat in stores across Japan, Kyokuyo is disregarding a global conservation agreement and contradicting its own environmental policy. The Kyokuyo Group Environmental Policy states "Kyokuyo will strictly observe ... regulations for conservation of the environment."
A ban on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986 after many whale species crashed, but Japan continues to kill whales by taking advantage of a "scientific" loophole. Japan's lethal research, which provides Kyokuyo with whale meat to sell, has been condemned by the the International Whaling Commission (the body that regulates whaling) since Japan's so-called scientific whaling started in 1987.
True Foods Could Follow in Gorton's Footsteps
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| EIA |
| True World Food's logo. |
In 2006, public pressure on Gorton's, America's leading seafood producer, prompted Nissui, Gorton's parent company and co-owner of Japan's whaling company Kyodo Senpaku, to transfer its ownership of the whaling company to "public interest" companies in Japan and to stop selling whale meat.
Companies Maruha and Kyokuyo also dropped their shares in Kyodo Senpaku, but unlike Nissui and Maruha, Kyokuyo continues to produce and distribute whale meat from Japan's so-called scientific whaling program. "Raw Deal"[PDF], a new report, reveals that two-thirds of retail outlets surveyed by the Environmental Investigation Agency sold, or currently sell, Kyokuyo brand whale meat.
Without companies like Kyokuyo, Japan's whaling industry would fall flat. True World, by not acting, is endorsing a company vital to the whaling industry—an industry which kills thousands of whales every year.
With more than $250 million in annual sales, more than 700 employees and a distribution base of 7,000 sushi and fine-dining restaurants nationwide, True World Foods is a powerful company in a position to influence Kyokuyo's business practices.
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| EIA |
| Kyokuyo's logo. |
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Kyokuyo's History with Japan's Whaling |
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 Kyokuyo began as a whaling company in 1937 and killed more than 130,000 whales in the Antarctic and North Pacific before the commercial whaling moratorium came into effect in 1986.
With the companies Maruha and Nippon Suisan (Nissui), Kyokuyo owned and operated the Antarctic whaling fleet throughout the height of commercial whaling. Conservative estimates indicate that these three companies together killed nearly half a million whales in the Antarctic and North Pacific between 1929 and 1986.
As a result of the decline in the number of whales, and therefore, the whaling business, the whaling departments of these companies merged in 1976 and would later flout the ban on commercial whaling by transforming into Japan's scientific whaling business, Kyodo Senpaku. The whaling fleet owned by Kyodo Senpaku has killed nearly 10,000 whales since the moratorium was implemented. |
