up a 50-cm-long kue from a preserve in the dark green seawater in Tanabe Bay in Wakayama Prefecture, facing the Pacific Ocean.
"Our kue is genuine Kishu fish," Okubo said, using the old name for present-day Wakayama and the southern part of Mie Prefecture. "Our advantage is that we can make use of the laboratory's cutting-edge technology."
Kue have almost been fished out of existence and are called "phantom fish." Farming of this fish was considered hard because fertilized eggs were difficult to obtain since the kue undergoes a sex change from female to male.
The laboratory established the technology to cultivate kue, first raising young kue at Shirahama for six months and hauling them by ship to its farm in Amami Oshima, Kagoshima Prefecture.
Water temperatures there are high, which helps the fish grow fast. They pick up weight and in a few years weigh 2 kg to 3 kg.
They are then brought back to Shirahama to harden in cooler waters before they are shipped to market.
The company started marketing kue at the end of last year as a fish to be cooked in a pot.
Previously, the laboratory developed fish farming technologies for the cultivation of red sea bream, yellowtail and hardtail, for use as breeders.
Okubo said the laboratory launched the business of selling its cultured fish to consumers because it wanted to depart from merely growing fish.
The law to support small and midsize enterprises helped, as it opened the way for companies to be set up with capital as low as 1 yen.
The laboratory's researchers have been reducing stress on cultivated fish by holding down the number of fish grown in each preserve.
They established A-Marine Kindai, believing that because they are particular about the environment for fish cultivation and are in a research institute, this would appeal to consumers.
The company's sales have climbed to 1.2 billion yen since it opened business in April last year, including fish fry and grown fish sold to breeders.
Their objective also coincides with a consumer trend to take food safety seriously.
The company received inquiries from leading supermarkets for its "university-grown fish."
Hankyu Department Store's flagship store in Umeda, Osaka, maintains a corner devoted exclusively to goods from A-Marine Kindai.
The store's public relations department said prices of the company's products are high but are easily accounted for by such things as their farming technologies, quality of feed used and safety.
The next step is the sale of cultivated bluefin tuna, possibly this autumn.
