recession, what recession?
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£400 melons lure Japanese thieves to juicy profits
From Leo Lewis in Tokyo
FROM Hokkaido to Okinawa, Japan’s farmers are suffering a spate of nocturnal fruit thefts prompted by astronomical market prices.
With a perfect honeydew melon commanding as much as £400 for a corporate gift, and best grapes selling for up to £75 a bunch, orchards are being pillaged and greenhouses ransacked as thieves scour the countryside for the finest fruit.
The Japanese have long paid exorbitant prices for domestically-grown fruit and vegetables, which they consider far superior to much cheaper imports from elsewhere in Asia. They place a particular premium on produce that is free of any blemish, or has beautifully-patterned skins.
But even those prices have rocketed in recent weeks following an unusually poor harvest. While Europe has baked over the summer, Japan has been cool and wet, cutting the crop yield and its quality.
Prices for apples, pears and other domestic fruit have tripled. A well-chosen haul of cherries can now fetch thousands of pounds, but melons have become the most highly prized target for the thieves because of the ridiculolus prices they fetch.
In the latest outrage, 1,000 perfectly-rounded onions with a street price of about £4,000 were pulled from a field in Kanagawa on Thursday night. Even rice has been targeted in raids in Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures.
Several gangs of fruit thieves are believed to be responsible, but there has not been a single arrest. All that the thieves have in common is an eye for perfect fruit, even in the dark. They are also thought to have developed an efficient distribution network, since their ill-gotten gains perish very quickly.
Given the poor harvest, selling the stolen goods is not likely to have presented much of a problem. As Chie Harada, the owner of Harada Fruits in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district, said: “These days we take whatever we can. I’m not too worried about who the supplier is any more.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
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£400 melons lure Japanese thieves to juicy profits
From Leo Lewis in Tokyo
FROM Hokkaido to Okinawa, Japan’s farmers are suffering a spate of nocturnal fruit thefts prompted by astronomical market prices.
With a perfect honeydew melon commanding as much as £400 for a corporate gift, and best grapes selling for up to £75 a bunch, orchards are being pillaged and greenhouses ransacked as thieves scour the countryside for the finest fruit.
The Japanese have long paid exorbitant prices for domestically-grown fruit and vegetables, which they consider far superior to much cheaper imports from elsewhere in Asia. They place a particular premium on produce that is free of any blemish, or has beautifully-patterned skins.
But even those prices have rocketed in recent weeks following an unusually poor harvest. While Europe has baked over the summer, Japan has been cool and wet, cutting the crop yield and its quality.
Prices for apples, pears and other domestic fruit have tripled. A well-chosen haul of cherries can now fetch thousands of pounds, but melons have become the most highly prized target for the thieves because of the ridiculolus prices they fetch.
In the latest outrage, 1,000 perfectly-rounded onions with a street price of about £4,000 were pulled from a field in Kanagawa on Thursday night. Even rice has been targeted in raids in Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures.
Several gangs of fruit thieves are believed to be responsible, but there has not been a single arrest. All that the thieves have in common is an eye for perfect fruit, even in the dark. They are also thought to have developed an efficient distribution network, since their ill-gotten gains perish very quickly.
Given the poor harvest, selling the stolen goods is not likely to have presented much of a problem. As Chie Harada, the owner of Harada Fruits in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district, said: “These days we take whatever we can. I’m not too worried about who the supplier is any more.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
