These bidders stopped at nothing to get the perfect fruit.
These bidders stopped at nothing to get the perfect fruit.
YUBARI MELONS 3 MILLION YEN (S$36,000)
The first auction of the 2016 harvest season in Sapporo was for a pair of melons from the Hokkaido city of Yubari. They fetched a recordbreaking price, overtaking the 2.5 million yen bid from 2008 and 2014.
The melons went to supermarket buyer Takamaru Konishi, who wanted to thank the Yubari farmers for their years of help.
RUBY ROMAN GRAPES 1.1 MILLION YEN (S$13,000)
Konishi made another outrageously high bid later that year for a bunch of Ruby Roman grapes at the wholesale market auction in Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture.
His was the most expensive of 46 batches at the auction, and with only 30 grapes in that bunch, one grape (about the size of a ping pong ball) costs around $430.
The black-skinned densuke watermelon is prized for its sweetness and crunchy texture, and the most expensive one sold was a 7.7kg melon at a 2008 auction. The bid was made by an unnamed marine products dealer who wanted to support local agriculture. An unseasonably warm spring that year helped boost sugar content for the harvest.
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