A pair of Japanese Mangoes went for nearly RM15K at an auction

By JUICE Malaysia • 17 Apr 2018 in News

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4 years ago, a buddy of ours over at Says reported about a pair of premium mangoes from the Miyazaki prefecture in Japan going for USD3k that left many Malaysian readers’ mouths opened. Today, the price of a premium pair of these same mangoes have risen by over USD700 (well, maybe that’s just the Ringgit getting weaker).

Nevertheless, last Monday a pair of “Taiyo no Tamago” (Egg of the Sun) were auctioned off at a record-matching 400,000 yen at a wholesale market, maintaining the price tag from the previous year.

To be labelled as an Egg of the Sun, mangoes have to fulfil the brand’s qualifications of weighing at least 350 grams, possessing a high level of sugar and having a bright red colour covering more than half of its skin, according to the Miyazaki Agricultural Economic Federation.

The 400k yen mangoes that were cased in a container and weighed about 1 kilogram in total, will be sold at a department store in Fukuoka, the biggest city in the Kyushu region.

With the brand celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Miyazaki Deputy Gov Yukitoshi Gunji pledged to promote the prefecture’s prized fruit globally.

Luxury fruits is a thing in Japan with prices going as high as tens of thousands in USD, like these Hokkaido melons. In 2016, a pair of premium cantaloupe sold for USD27,240.

Other fruits like this tennis-ball sized Bijin-hime strawberry could go for around 500,000 yen (USD4,395) per piece.

Then there’s also the country’s obsession with kawaii (cute) things and their ability to genetically splice anything with precision, resulting in some really overpriced watermelons.