After years of battling to market its contentious goods, a Japanese whaling company has discovered a brand-new strategy: whale meat vending machines.
The Kujira (Whale) Store is an unmanned establishment that recently opened in the port city of Yokohama, which is close to Tokyo. It has three machines that sell canned whale meat and whale skin for costs ranging from 1,000 yen ($7.70) to 3,000 yen ($23).
The third store to open in the Japanese capital region, it has white vending machines with cartoon whale decorations. After two others were unveiled in Tokyo earlier this year as a part of Kyodo Senpaku Co.'s new sales campaign, it launched on Tuesday.
Although sales in the new vending machines have quietly started off well, the operator notes that whale meat has always been a contentious topic. Since Japan ended its widely condemned scientific hunts in the Antarctic three years ago and resumed commercial whaling off its shores, anti-whaling demonstrations have decreased.
In five years, Kyodo Senpaku plans to place the vending machines at 100 locations across the nation, according to Konomu Kubo, a business representative. In Osaka, a fourth will debut the following month.
The plan is to install vending machines close to supermarkets, where whale meat is typically unavailable, in order to create demand—a task essential for the sustainability of the sector.
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