“Yubari Melon” produced in Yubari-shi, Hokkaido has recently become the talk of the country after a package of two pieces of Yubari Melon marked a record-high price of 3 million yen on May 26.
The “3 million yen effect” is now spreading. At an early stage of midyear gift campaigns promoted by department stores in the country, the number of the orders for Yubari Melon has already exceeded the level of the previous year.
Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Store at Koto-ku, Tokyo, one of the most popular department stores in Japan, has put the Yubari Melon in its summer gift list and received orders of the Melon, 50 percent more than that at the corresponding period of last year.
At Roadside Station Yubari Meroad in Yubari City, gift orders of Yubari Melon has remarkably increased in recent weeks. The orders for June shipment have already increased by more than 20 percent over the last year.
These gifts of Yubari Melon are mostly sent out of the Hokkaido Island. Officials of the Yubari City, which had an experience of financial collapse in 2007, welcome those news of Yubari Melon saying “Our Yubari Melon will change an image of the city from dark to bright.”