Why 4 Of The World's Priciest Seafoods Are So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Business Insider

[Music] while exploring the world's most expensive items we uncovered a trove of hidden treasures from the ocean from stone crab claws to sea urchins japanese eel to gooseneck barnacles join us as we revisit what makes these seafoods so expensive first we're traveling to an eel farm in japan to see why a kilogram of baby eels can cost around 35 thousand dollars this is the most expensive fish in japan in january 2018 a kilogram of these baby eels cost around 35 000 that's more than blue fin tuna and almost as much as the price of gold at the time but catching these eels is just the beginning it can take a year of work until they're large enough to be sold so what makes these eels so popular and why are they so expensive people in japan have eaten eel for thousands of years restaurants like this can sell 40 to 50 tons of eel each year japanese eel or anguilla japonica can be found across east asia but overfishing and changing habitats have caused a huge decline in eel populations since 1980 the global catch of eel has declined by more than 75 percent which has had a huge effect on price unlike other types of fishing the majority of eels are raised not caught as adults young eels called glass eels are caught in the wild and raised on farms like this no farms have been able to efficiently breed the eels in captivity so farmers depend on the catch of young eels to make a profit and that's what raising this many eels requires constant attention michio has been working as an eel farmer for almost 40 years after the cost of the eels themselves feeding them is the most expensive part two to three times a day workers feed eels this it's a mixture of fish meal wheat soybean meal me [Music] [Music] after six to 12 months of work eels are big enough to be sold workers unload the eels and sort them by size to determine where they'll be sold experienced workers can quickly tell the difference just by feel some of these eels will end up at restaurants like serugaya which has been serving eel for over 150 years that high demand is part of the reason young eels are so expensive the final dish is called kabayaki it may look simple but preparing it takes years to master yogurt [Music] workers prepare eel live to maintain freshness but this makes handling much more difficult workers remove the bones and cut eels to the proper size for the skewers yield has to be constantly monitored while it's cooking to achieve even grilling chef steam then grill each eel three times dipping m kabayaki presented in a lacquer box with rice is called unanju it can cost up to 91 depending on the price of adult eel if prices are too high restaurants struggle to make a profit [Music] foreign in japan eels are eaten year round but consumption peaks in the summer and it's become a big part of some local economies but the high demand has caused concern in 2014 japanese eels were classified as endangered and because of low domestic catch the majority of eels eaten in japan are imported from china and taiwan [Music] there have been efforts to improve the eel population like regulating fishing releasing adult eels back into the water and researching how to hatch eels in farms but the future of japanese eels remains unclear and the price is likely to increase with demand stone crab claws are one of the priciest seafoods you can buy depending on their size a pound of claws at a restaurant can cost as much as 70 but catching these crabs is hard work strangely enough fishers can only harvest the claws from the crabs while the bodies must be returned to the ocean so what makes these claws so coveted and why are they so expensive you can only fish for stone crab on the southeastern coast of the us cuba the bahamas and mexico and it's florida where more stone crabs are caught than anywhere else these crustaceans are markedly more expensive than other popular crabs a pound of claws can cost two times the price of alaskan snow crab legs part of what makes these crabs so costly is the labor-intensive process of catching them there's a nice crab ernie paton jr has been commercially fishing for stone crabs for over 40 years with limited time to harvest each year his crew must start their days early sailing out before the sun rises the process begins with dropping traps down to the ocean floor this is probably the funnest part you know you get to be a little more physical you know and i mean it's a little bit of a rhythm thing going on here it's like dancing mariachi but plucking these claws can be a dangerous process the claws on an adult crab can have as much as 9 000 pounds of pressure per square inch with the enormous pressure that's exerted they could actually pop a finger off at the joint these crabs they have a mind of their own you can easily get bit you know if you're not careful i've only been bit maybe say eight times in my career popped over a million balls in my day the crew leaves the traps in the water for about two weeks before they're pulled in by a rope then each one must be sorted thoroughly we come back in a couple of weeks and then got a couple in the trap we're going to pull them out we're gonna pop their claws and uh hope for a good day crews break off the claws quickly so they don't keep the crabs out of water for too long but even if a trap is full of crabs kevin can't necessarily take every claw the state requires all harvested claws to be at least 2 and 7 8 inches long crabbers can legally break off both claws if they meet the required size the ones that look smaller we measure them on the gauge like that one crabs are one of few animals that can regenerate when a crab loses a claw or two it can grow each one back in time on average claws can take up to three years to grow large enough to harvest again which is why the state requires that crabbers pay close attention to each clause size this ensures fissures don't remove one prematurely but despite the claw's ability to regrow some researchers have questioned the sustainability of this system the florida fish and wildlife conservation commission found that 46 to 82 of crabs died from the loss of two claws while 23 to 59 died from the removal of one that's compared to just 12.8 percent of crabs that died when no claws were removed crabs can also only regrow a claw if the joint that linked it is left intact otherwise they'll bleed to death this makes the way these claws are broken all the more important for preserving the fisheries future hiring enough people to make the operation run smoothly is another reason for the high price of these claws and then there's one other cost you'd never expect each trip requires 900 pounds of pigs feet for bait and that's just about half of the total cost of fishing for the day normal running cost to go stomach crap in a day is about 1100 to leave the dog laid prices have gone up fuel prices have gone up you know the track tag prices have gone up after 10 hours on the boat ernie's crew must boil and ice their catch as soon as they return otherwise the claws won't stay fresh they finish the day by weighing each claw which ultimately sets the final value claws are sold in four sizes at billy stone crab restaurant prices range from 35 to 70 dollars per pound we run about 4 thousand pounds of stone crab through the restaurant each week on a busy weekend we we sell seven to eight hundred pounds of stone crab the most expensive order costs a hundred forty dollars the plate is made up of four seven ounce colossal claws which yields just under one pound of crab meat fresh cooked claws sold on ice are less expensive but even then the mediums will cost you 29 dollars per pound years ago stone crabs weren't such valuable food in the 1890s they were nothing more than bycatch in spiny lobster traps fishers began to keep the crabs that fell into those traps and by the late 20th century the stone crab fishery had become one of the most valuable industries in florida today it's worth 30 million dollars and the prices of these claws aren't likely to drop anytime soon data from the fwc show the number of crabs caught each year has declined by seven hundred twelve thousand pounds that's since peak harvest in the late 1990s many commercial harvesters have also started fishing farther offshore pointing to a lesser number of crabs in the area the fwc says both of these changes signify a threat of overfishing and prices have gone up in order to keep the fishery profitable to further protect the species future the fwc instated even stricter regulations last year two changes include an increase in the minimum size of harvestable claws and cutting the fishing season short by two weeks these limitations aren't likely to lower the cost of stone crab claws but the goal is to help preserve them and keep florida fishers busy for years to come one crab i remember my favorite crab i ever saw looked like a louis vuitton pattern a bunch of diamonds and it was just a pretty thing about 20 000 pounds of sea urchins are delivered to the santa barbara factory each week but it's not until you crack open the spiky shells that you see what makes sea urchins so valuable the gonads just one 200 gram tray of urchin gonads like this can cost one hundred dollars and some in japan can sell for over five times that sea urchins are one of the few seafoods still hand harvested by divers today and in recent years masses of them have taken over the seabeds of california so why are there so many urchins and how despite this seemingly huge supply are they still so expensive sea urchin or uni is a prized delicacy in several parts of the world today the yellow orange gonads are often served in sushi and even right out of the shell hundreds of urchin species exist but only a select few are coveted food including the red sea urchin here in santa barbara known as california gold these gonads are prized because they're large buttery and sweet from the kelp they eat to find gonads like this divers need to collect individual sea urchins by hand michael robertson has been diving for urchins for 15 years he starts his days early sailing out before the sun rises it takes him and his crew about two and a half hours to reach a good diving spot see that that little island up there that's called b rock that's where we're going so all this green right here on top of this red that's reef is vegetation that's a good thing that lets us know it's not sand and it's just not bare rock if there's vegetation maybe there's urchins michael looks for abundant kelp forest to help him decide where to dive more kelp typically means better quality urchins 2010 on a good day a diver could harvest maybe up to 2 000 pounds a day of good quality sea urchins now the divers are typically coming in with about 300 to 500 pounds a day so a quarter of the amount but surprisingly parts of california's seabeds are full of urchins if they wanted to they could still bring in 2 000 pounds a day there's a lot of sea urchins out there but there's a lack of kelp so even if you bring in 2 000 pounds if they're not marketable then we don't harvest them if you want to compare how it was to how it is this was solid kelp from here all the way in all the way down and now you have just little pockets here here and there that lack of kelp impacts the value of red sea urchins it also strains the ocean's ecosystem and the species that rely on kelp forests for habitat along with warming waters and pollution in recent decades a certain sea urchin is to blame sea urchins can survive for years without eating even without gonads and after the decline of sea stars one of its predators in 2013 the purple sea urchin population exploded consuming more than 95 percent of california's kelp forests as it grew purple urchins are smaller and produce fewer gonads so there's little commercial demand for them and as purple urchins multiply and eat more kelp red urchins with good gonads become harder for divers to find finding the right spot to dive is just the first challenge getting your hands on these spiky creatures is the main one some people wonder if sea urchin diving is a dangerous occupation can be as dangerous as you allow it if you don't keep really tight tabs on your gear and the mechanics of your boat it could easily kill you to make the job easier michael and his partner fred need specific tools so this is the one essential piece of equipment everybody has to have it's called a rake it's custom made everybody's has their own take on how they like to have it done i've got all these fancy colors on mine because if i ever drop it i'll be able to see it on the bottom and my daughter loves putting the tape on once they're suited up michael and fred head to the bottom and begin collecting urchins one by one all right even with the proper gear a good dive is never a guarantee typically there are only about five gonads inside each urchin and without enough kelp for the urchins to feed on the gonads start to shrivel up in some cases an urchin will be totally empty inside we do crack urchins on the bottom so that we can see what we're picking if there's enough product inside and what the colors like inside to make things more challenging michael can only harvest urchins at least three and a quarter inches in size you can't just go out and pick empty urchins so there's a lot more empty urchins than there is beautiful packed urchins that you want to sell depending on what they're eating depends on the grade of the urchins we got lucky on that one [Applause] after a 12-hour day to the islands and back michael returns with 750 to 900 pounds of urchins the shelf life of fresh urchins is short so they need to be delivered to processors that same night by 4 am gene dimachi's team is already cracking and cleaning each one by hand [Music] and today we probably have about 10 000 sea urchins to go through the gonads are extremely fragile and they only stay fresh for about a week workers crack each urchin down the middle to avoid breaking any of the gonads inside then it's time for one of the most crucial parts of this process cleaning the gonads this stage requires sharp attention to detail if workers don't totally remove the intestines inside the urchin the gonads degrade faster and if any of the gonads rip during this process they immediately drop in value the gonad breaks then it drops a grade or two and when it goes from my a plus plus grade and we have to drop it down to b grade the value is maybe about a quarter of what it could have been workers then sort the gonads by color making sure each tray has a uniform shade of yellow or orange after they've packed each wooden tray they use tweezers to inspect each gonad again and gently remove any remaining kelp shells or spines the most valuable gonads make up the a plus plus grade jean sells a 200 gram premium tray like this for 100 these uni are bright yellow or orange and come only from the sweeter male urchins they're primarily sent to restaurants but gene doesn't come by this quality of gonad often he typically only finds one premium gonad out of every 100 urchins sea urchin gonads weren't always valuable food in the u.s particularly in the 70s just before gene's father opened tradewind the government used to ask the divers the local divers to smash them kill him at the time until a japanese person came along and said no this is this is actually a delicacy in japan and after many trials and errors you know we also found out that santa barbara searching is actually really really good like one of the best in the world santa barbara urchin was traditionally shipped to japan until economic collapse stalled things in the mid 90s fortunately for jean's family and other u.s producers a sushi boom took off in the u.s around the same time those of us that was able to make the transition from the japanese market into the u.s domestic market survived at the time today gene ships his product across the u.s uni is one of the few seafood out there that they really haven't perfected farming yet until somebody figures that out uni is probably going to be a limited highly sought after item this ultimately raises the price of rare premium gonads year we're actually seeing a good quality high quality uni that we haven't seen in about a decade we're seeing a lot more colder waters we're starting to see kelp grow back where it hasn't grown back in the last 10 years after a difficult decade things might be looking up for red sea urchins and the kelp they depend on stevie dennis is harvesting a cluster of gooseneck barnacles one of the most expensive seafoods in the world just one pound can cost over 100 in spain and portugal where the barnacles are considered a delicacy that's about seven times the price of some main lobster but getting your hands on these barnacles is harder than it seems the job comes with serious risks and even the possibility of death so why are gooseneck particles so difficult to harvest and is this what makes them so expensive gooseneck barnacles also known in europe as persebes have a long fleshy stock called a peduncle which holds the highly sought after meat you can eat people say it tastes like lobster crab or clam they grow in intertidal zones including in spain where an average of five people die trying to harvest them each year they also grow here off the coast of vancouver island the danger of harvesting the seafood begins before stevie and his partner jordan even reach the small rock island where the barnacles grow a 15-minute boat ride off the coast starts off smooth but wait a little longer and the waves will be thrusting high as stevie attempts to make the leap from the boat onto the rocks stevie's only able to harvest at low tide when he can access the rocks he can harvest only as long as the tide will allow him which is just a few hours a day outside of this limited window the barnacles are covered by water and too dangerous to harvest it's not like you have a full eight hour window to go harvest as many goosenecks as you can you have this very short window and you're gonna try and capitalize on that it's essential for stevie to do the job fast but carefully he harvests while constantly checking the tide one slip and the waves could take him under it just boils down to skilled labor you know it's it's not a job that anyone can do especially when you're working with a you know a small team of people you want to have full trust that you know both individuals can drive a vessel both individuals can harvest you have each other's back up there to add to the risks the most prized barnacles thrive in the most dangerous spots on the island these ones are denser and packed with meat and they grow on the edge of the rocks where the waves are constantly thrashing against them the barnacles here must feed more often so they can grow bigger to withstand the surf which is how they're able to cling more tightly to the rocks but this also makes them especially difficult to remove stevie uses a leaf spring tool to pry out clumps of gooseneck barnacles my uncle gave it to me he used to harvest goose snacks at times he uses his hands to pull them out one by one while worrying about his own safety stevie must also be careful with how he harvests the barnacles harvesters try to avoid taking or harming other organisms attached to the barnacles and they take extra care not to damage the gooseneck barnacle itself since slicing through it will automatically lower its value marketable barnacles will have a hard white plate at the end that's about 15 to 30 millimeters long the peduncle should be between 20 and 80 millimeters at each harvest site in vancouver less than 10 percent of the barnacles will be considered marketable you know it's like picture a picture of forest the further you go in and find where the trees the trees are a little bit more protected the top of the tree is where you're gonna find the branches and they're gonna have long trunks so that's the meat that you eat as plentiful as this rock island looks there's a limit to how many barnacles stevie can take once fishers harvest seven and a half percent of the marketable gooseneck barnacles from iraq that rock will be closed for six months to prevent over-harvesting after stevie and jordan return they transport the barnacles to local restaurants in vancouver they're delivered fresh since the barnacles degrade rapidly and if frozen they'll lose much of their texture and flavor when thawed making them less valuable say for salmon you know you can serve fresh salmon and then you can freeze it and then you can smoke it and you know you can push the longevity of that product months goosenecks aren't like that they're nice and fat yeah that's what i was looking for the barnacles are graded on an a b and c scale based on how much meat they hold your a's are going to be aesthetically quite pleasing very full and then the firmness of meat grades aside one and a half to two pounds of gooseneck barnacles will typically only yield just over half a pound of meat i want to prepare them as cleanly as possible which means you can taste all of the flavor that's inside and for me it tastes like the ocean that looks like the head of a dinosaur doesn't it the eye and then i always call them dinosaur toes in vancouver gooseneck barnacles have long been a traditional source of food for the members of the new channel first nations today stevie hopes to sell gooseneck barnacles for twenty dollars a pound that's about six dollars more than the cost per pound of hardshell lobster but in places like spain and portugal presebe's are considered a delicacy which is why they can cost even more sometimes over 100 dollars per pound prices are especially high in the summer and around the holidays when the people there eat per se base most often as gooseneck barnacles pop up in more high-end restaurants in canada and the us the demand could grow in that region of the world but for now the value of this crustacean is clear enough to the locals in vancouver people will say what does it taste like is it like a crab like a shrimp like a lobster i guess maybe you could say that but i look forward to the day when we say oh the crab and the lumps are a little bit like a gooseneck barnacle

Channel: Business Insider

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Length: 29min 26sec (1766 seconds)

Published: Tue May 10 2022