About us

Association Overview

Background of the Establishment of the Association

In 1923, the “Central Wholesale Market Law” was promulgated to ensure smooth supply and demand for food in our country, fair market prices, and the stability of citizens’ lives.
The following year, Yokohama City decided on a plan to construct the Yokohama City Central Wholesale Market, and after the Great Kanto Earthquake happened.
In 1931, the Yokohama City Central Wholesale Market, opened as the third central wholesale market in Japan and the first one in eastern Japan.

In 1932, the year after the market opened, more than 130 people, mainly brokers and wholesalers of market marine products, joined together to form the Yokohama Fish Market Brokers Association, a voluntary organization with the aim of unifying the minds of brokers and protecting joint business and interests. Then, after a wartime hiatus due to a controlled economy, the middleman system was revived with the abolition of controls on marine products in 1950, and a new brokerage association was established with middlemen from 55 corporate entities and the activities resumed.
In 1954, the individual fisheries brokerage system was revived and 153 brokers received individual licenses, and these 153 brokers (153 units) have since become the basic figures for our association.

In July 1960, after going through the turbulent periods before, during, and after the war, based on the “Small and Medium Enterprise Cooperative Association Act” that had been enforced in the previous year, incorporated the “Yokohama Fish Market Brokerage Cooperative Association” was established with the aim of mutually supporting its members and improving their economic status.
Later the name was changed perhaps because “brokers” were changed to “intermediate wholesalers.”
In 1967, the name was changed to the “Yokohama Fish Market Wholesale Cooperative Association,” which continues to this day.