A caravan of taxis awaited at 5a.m. on Tuesday morning, bearing us away to the Sapporo Central Wholesale Market. The staff treated us to a presentation on the market’s hidden role at the center of the city’s food distribution. Farmers and fishermen arrive with their wares long before the city has woken up, where brokers and wholesalers bid to claim the meat and produce. They repackage and resell the goods to grocery stores and restaurants, who prepare and serve it to us.

We hung over the rails, marveling at the turret truck drivers zooming past and gasping at the speed of the auctions. The four tuna on sale today (a reduced number, due to rough seas) found their buyers in less than a minute.

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