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Marco Polo JP · Japanese food for importers and distributors

Japan's elite qualityserved fresh to you.

Bought at the farm, in Japanese, and sold direct to importers and distributors. The grade you agreed is the grade in the box, and the producer is named on your paperwork.

Our manifesto

The best of Japan is not withheld on purpose. It simply never had a reason to travel.

A grower with four hundred kilos a year does not build an export desk. A fishery that sells out at home does not learn another language. So the finest of it stays, and what reaches the rest of the world is whatever was easiest to move. We exist to bring you the highest quality of what Japan can offer.

The range

Our products.

One line open, seven on request. Each one says exactly where it stands, because a buyer planning a menu needs to know the difference between available and intended.

What we do differently

Four things a buyer can check.


01

Named producers

Every quote carries the producer, the prefecture and the method, so the story you tell your own customer is one you can verify.

02

One side of the purchase

Purchasing, export documents and the cold chain are handled in Japan by people who work there. No chain of agents between you and the producer.

03

Specification first

Grade, count, net against gross, glaze and whether the count is guaranteed. In writing, before anything moves.

04

Honest availability

Open now or Ask us. We would rather carry a handful of lines properly than list fifty we cannot supply.

Terraced wasabi beds under cultivation
Provenance

We'll show you where it begins.


Anyone can write single origin on a label. We publish how a producer is chosen, what we verify before we buy, and what happens to a lot between the bed and your cold store. If a claim on our page cannot survive a buyer's question, it does not go on the page.

How we buy

Rooted in
Japanese origins.


Most Japanese food that reaches a Western distributor has been sold three or four times before it arrives, and each sale took a margin and lost a name. We buy at the first of those sales and we sell at the last.

That is the whole model. It is why the producer can be named on your paperwork, why the grade on the quote is the grade in the box, and why a question about a lot has an answer rather than a chain of enquiries.

8

Lines, each with its producer, prefecture and method stated.

One

Desk between the farm and your cold store.

Japan

Side of the purchase, in the language it is made in.

Written

Grade, count, net against gross and glaze, before anything moves.

How a line starts

Four steps, and a trial before anything starts.


We do not expect anybody to move their business on a first conversation. The point of a trial is that you can judge the quality, the paperwork and the service on a share of what you already buy.

  1. Step one

    You tell us the specification

    The grade, the pack, the monthly volume, the destination port and the price you need to work. Not "scallops": 3S, IQF, 10 by 1 kg, delivered Milan.

  2. Step two

    We quote against a named producer

    With the prefecture and the method stated, and the trade term on the quote so freight and duty are never assumed.

  3. Step three

    You take a trial

    Usually ten to twenty percent of what you already buy, so nothing is at risk while you judge it.

  4. Step four

    We buy forward against your schedule

    Which is what keeps a price steady in a market where the catch is falling.

The Manifest

What leaves Japan this month.


Once a month: the prices that moved, the reason they moved, and what we can allocate before it is spoken for. Written for people who buy, by the people doing the buying.

Buyers and distributors only. We do not sell the list and you can leave in one click.