The same man spent the rest of the afternoon and the following morning with me translating dozens of ingredients in dozens of qualities, prices and percentages proffered by some 10 members of specialist staff in an unused boardroom. At the end of it all I had sheets of paper with all my scribbled notes to digest afterwards. In turn I asked many questions back to the team – one in particular was as to why their budget range of ‘Green’ and ‘Gold’ was so inexpensive to buy and sell. The answer was both simple and shattering, the ‘food’ consisted of one ingredient namely bird feathers. The colourful plastic 500 gram display pack containing the ‘food’ (which stacked very neatly on retail display shelves) cost Yeaster 83% of finished production with a further 9% being the cardboard outers they were packed into for shipping. They made no attempt to hide these facts and said they were simply ‘supplying demand’.
As to the food I wished to buy there were only four recipes offered which caused some minor arguments between each of those offering them. It took me another three weeks whilst in Japan to come to a decision as to the exact recipe and I finally placed my first order for five tons with Yeaster to make a Koi food exclusively for me to retail in the UK.
I will not go into great details as to the ingredients which were used to make up the recipe but the single most important one that was agreed upon by all at the meetings was ‘White Fishmeal’ – sounds simple enough doesn’t it?
Alas, this is not the case at all, I was presented with a two page list of what was available to select from. If my memory is correct it started at £37.00 per ton and went right through to ‘Pure White Alaskan Pollack’ at – wait for it – a touch under £1,700.00 per ton and all prices in-between which were all subject to daily market fluctuations!
I finally opted for the most expensive form and sod the cost!
But that was not the end of the subject. On my return to the UK I registered the trademark of ‘Sakura’ (cherry blossom) for my foods and then received many assorted colourful packaging suggestions from Yeaster. The price of the packaging brought me back to earth with a bump! I rang my English-speaking friend at Yeaster and suggested a plain silver foil bag that held 1 kilo of pellets which would be vacuum-sealed with no air inside after the final seal. Before packing I suggested an adhesive sticker be fixed to the pack with the Sakura Brand name and logo and the pellet size together with ingredients clearly shown. I also asked that they were packed in 20 1 kilo pack outers for transportation in plain cardboard boxes.
The first shipment arrived in the UK in early 1985 and then I had the task of introducing it and promoting it to the Koi public of the day. Those were the days when the Koi scene was alive and few others had considered having Koi foods made in the UK – that was to follow several years later. To say Sakura Koi foods were a huge success is a complete understatement – all the major UK enthusiasts tried it and then word of mouth advertising did the rest.
We continued importing and selling the food in significant quantities until 1991 when UK-Made products took over on price and price alone and I bowed out and let them all fight it out between themselves – and they are still fighting today, endlessly believing there is a huge market out there for their products!
The Present
So just what has all this got to do with Koi foods available today?
It should point out that I know ‘just a little’ about the manufacture of specialist Koi foods.
Right now there are only two Japanese-made Koi foods available in the UK, one being the Hikari range still imported by Pedigree Wholesale and the other being the ‘Medicarp’ range imported by Selective Koi Sales.
The remainder are manufactured elsewhere and there are so many brands, sizes, recipes, prices and weight options available that it is almost impossible to even begin to put each one on a fair trial, that is unless you are planning to live to be 250 years old.
(Don’t fall for the old chestnut regarding ‘Dainichi’ Koi foods – they are made in the USA and the late Minoru Mano never used it in his life. They even have tropical fish foods available today!)
Another priceless name for a Koi food brand for many years is ‘Nishikoi’ which they cannot even spell correctly.
I am often asked by serious Koi keepers as to the ‘best readily available food’ for their Koi today and my reply has been the same for many years as far as quality and value is concerned.
This is the 15 kilo brown paper sack of ‘Hikari Wheat Germ’ as opposed to the very pretty 5 kilo coloured packs which may give us an idea as to how much the pretty packaging that we throw away actually costs.
I know of many Koi enthusiasts who buy these large sacks and share them between other enthusiasts to keep costs as low as possible. However, the transportation costs from Japan today as well as very low current exchange rates between the two countries cannot be dismissed lightly.
