{"id":97930,"date":"2022-07-27T00:39:21","date_gmt":"2022-07-27T10:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaii.carpentermediagroup.com\/midweekpro\/?p=97930"},"modified":"2022-11-07T15:46:09","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T01:46:09","slug":"michael-goto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaii.carpentermediagroup.com\/midweekpro\/michael-goto\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Life within the commercial longline fishing industry can be tough, but Michael Goto, auctioneer and assistant vice president of United Fishing Agency, is just the person to tackle it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whoever said that nothing good ever happens after midnight has never hung out at Pier 38 during the early morning hours. That\u2019s the time when a number of commercial longline fishing boats begin pulling into Honolulu Harbor with crews eager to unload their sizable catch for anyone present to see.<\/p>\n

And what good things harvested from waters around the Hawaiian Islands do they bring into port? Tens of thousands of pounds of bigeye and yellowfin tuna (\u2018ahi), striped marlin, mahimahi, pink snapper (\u2018\u014dpakapaka), wahoo (ono) and more. Once offloaded, these bounties of the sea are inspected, weighed, tagged and displayed on pallets for a number of buyers, including chefs, who congregate at the pier\u2019s \u201cfishing village\u201d shortly before 5:30 a.m. for another very good thing: the only large-scale commercial auction staged between Tokyo and Maine.<\/p>\n

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Michael Goto, who\u2019s managed the Honolulu Fish Auction for the past decade, calls out prices as seafood buyers inspect the day\u2019s catch and place their bids. PHOTO COURTESY UNITED FISHING AGENCY LTD.<\/strong>
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Supervising all of this activity while waiting to ring the traditional brass bell \u2014 the signal that announces the start of each day\u2019s bidding \u2014 is Honolulu Fish Auction manager Michael Goto. It\u2019s a role he\u2019s held for the past decade and one that he takes particular pride in, in part because he understands all the good that the local seafood business does for the islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commercial fishing industry is the largest food producer in the state,\u201d says Goto, who also serves as assistant vice president of United Fishing Agency, the entity that runs the auction and is celebrating its 70th year in business. \u201cWe\u2019re really 80%-90% of the local production of food in the state, so if we\u2019re talking about food security, we\u2019re the most important industry.<\/p>\n

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After ringing the traditional brass bell at 5:30 a.m., Michael Goto, manager of the Honolulu Fish Auction, moves the bidding process along among competing seafood buyers. PHOTOS COURTESY UNITED FISHING AGENCY LTD.<\/strong>
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\u201cFresh fish is not only a cultural staple here,\u201d he adds, \u201cit\u2019s also an economic necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, the auction \u2014 which is modeled after the former Tsukiji Market auction in Tokyo, where fish were sold individually rather than by the boatload to wholesalers \u2014 plays an essential part of the process of getting fish from sea to store and, ultimately, onto tables. On every day of the week except Sunday, buyers representing the wholesale, retail and restaurant industries descend upon Pier 38 and bid against one another on the value of each fish, all while Goto moves between pallet displays on the refrigerated auction floor calling out prices. Typically, the public sale lasts three to four hours, but the event has been known to go on for longer.<\/p>\n

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PHOTOS COURTESY UNITED FISHING AGENCY LTD.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe basically run the auction until the day\u2019s allotment is done,\u201d explains Goto. \u201cWe average between 50,000 and 80,000 pounds of fish a day, but we\u2019ve even done over 100,000 pounds a day around certain holidays like Christmas and New Year\u2019s, just because there is that much demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really the only venue that promotes the display-type system of palletizing fish with ice, putting them onto our auction floor, cutting their tails and taking core sampling out of the interior \u2014 all so that our buyers can inspect every single fish, value the product themselves and be willing to pay whatever the market value is,\u201d he continues, adding that the agency, which is inspected annually by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, employs strict protocols regarding fish handling at the auction and quality control at sea.<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of each public sale, seafood buyers are immediately invoiced on winning bids, and fishermen from the fleet\u2019s 140 vessels who brought in the day\u2019s catch are paid. Thereafter, purchased fish are trucked to O\u2018ahu stores, hotel chains and restaurants, flown to the outer islands and the mainland, and even exported to Japan, Canada and Europe, where they are turned into poke or a myriad of other beloved appetizers and main dishes.<\/p>\n

But wherever the fresh fish land, the people there are certain to be happy with these locally sourced, premium-fresh goods, according to Goto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a sought-after commodity,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of vendors will tell you that Hawai\u2018i\u2019s seafood is the best in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goto is certainly no fish out of water when it comes to auctioneering. Fact is, he\u2019s a natural at it as a third-generation operator of the local auction, which made its debut on Aug. 5, 1952, at \u2018A\u2018ala Park.<\/p>\n

That also happens to be the same year that United Fishing Agency was established following the merger of several longline fishing companies in the islands, all of them with roots in the flagline fishing method introduced by Japanese immigrants to Hawai\u2018i in the early 1900s. One of the operation\u2019s central figures was his grandfather, Frank Kunio Goto, who served for decades as its general manager.<\/p>\n