Yubari Melons Fetch Second-Highest Price at ¥3.5 Mil. in Year’s 1st Auction

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:40 JST, May 25, 2023

Kiyomichi Noda, the chairman of Hokuyupack Co. in Yubari, Hokkaido, embraces a boxed pair of Yubari melons he purchased for ¥3.5 million during the first auction for the fruit this season, at the Sapporo Central Wholesale Market in Sapporo on Thursday.

It was the second-highest price fetched by Yubari melons, the king of Hokkaido’s summer fruits that are grown in Yubari, after another pair sold for ¥5 million in 2019.

Hokuyupack, a fruits packaging company, also made the winning bid of ¥3 million for two Yubari melons last year. “They [Yubari melons] taste sweeter than usual this year because there’ve been large differences between warm and cold temperatures,” Noda, 75, said. “I hope people eating these melons will have a smile on their faces.”