Shiki Facts

Shiki Seafood 101: Your Uni Journey

Bafun Uni Auctions

 

Bafun Uni, Murasaki Uni, Aka Uni Journey

Uni or Sea urchin is extremely valuable and highly sought after throughout the culinary world. Any chef looking to spice up their dish and take it to the next level would always consider Uni as one of their top if not their top choice of ingredient.

Many people have asked us where our Uni comes from, here is our Uni journey…

Uni, especially the top grade comes from the famed Uni farms in Hokkaido Japan. That being said, very high quality Uni are also found in Northern Japan, Rishiri islands, Russia as well as Australia, USA and Canada.

This brand of premium uni, "Matsu-ura", is premium farmed bafun uni and is specially chosen by the owner of the uni farm every morning after their uni is shucked and prepared for packing.

Hokkaido to Toyosu

Every morning at the Uni farms, divers hand dive and pick he best looking Sea Urchins (Uni) for harvest. This process normally takes a few hours in freezing cold temperatures as each Sea Urchin is inspected for Size, Shape and Colour.

Once collected, the Uni is then transported to the processing areas to be opened, washed and sorted. Here, the Uni farmers meticulously and carefully extract the Uni from its Sea Urchin shell and prepare each Uni lobe for grading. Each Sea Urchin has 5 Uni lobes, each lobe is carefully inspected and separated according to their grades and placed in Salt water or Seaweed solution depending on the farms.

Once Graded, the Uni is then sent for packing. Here the Uni packers pick the graded Uni one by one and place them into the iconic wooden boxes ready to be shipped out to the next stage of their Journey.

Toyosu to Haneda

Each box of delicious Uni then makes its way from around the world to the famed Toyosu market to be auctioned. Uni from Hokkaido takes less than a day to reach Tokyo and Toyosu market, at the auctions each box of Uni is labelled and given a grading by the Uni auctioneers before being auctioned.

Every morning at 3am our Uni brokers begin their journey to Toyosu market Uni auctions, at the auctions our Uni brokers carefully inspect each and every box of Uni looking for the top quality to be sent to Singapore. At around 430am the Uni auctions start and the battle for the top boxes of Uni commences, our brokers with their many years of experience usually come out of the auctions Victorious and with the top boxes of Uni.

Once the auctions are completed, our Uni brokers carefully Quality control and swiftly prepare and pack each box of Uni ready to be airflown to Singapore. At 8am, the Uni is then ready to be sent from Toyosu market to Haneda Airport to be flown to us Shiki in Singapore.

Tokyo to Singapore

In Singapore once the Uni arrives it is immediately picked up and sent to Shiki to be sorted out and delivered to you. In Singapore our Uni specialists begin a second round of quality control checks to ensure the highest quality Uni arrives in Singapore. Once checked, each box is carefully transported straight to your doorstep to be used immediately.

This whole process from start to finish takes no less than 2 days, this ensures that the Uni arriving in Shiki is the freshest and of the highest quality. Rest assured that the Uni sent is the very best and freshest.

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