How We Research

Every article on Sushi Journal is built from three sources only: primary data published by Japanese government bodies, Japanese-language specialist books on sushi, and the published records of the institutions involved — markets, municipalities and heritage bodies — read in Japanese. Every figure is traced back to its publisher. If we cannot confirm a number, we do not print it.

— How We Research, Sushi Journal
Our Sources

Three sources, and nothing else

01
Public data from Japanese government bodies

Figures on tourism, food safety, and market operations come from ministries and public bodies — the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Japan National Tourism Organization, and municipal market authorities. We cite the publisher and the date of publication, never a secondhand summary.

02
Japanese-language specialist books

Technique, history, and terminology are checked against a working library of nine Japanese-language books on sushi — from itamae memoirs to academic food-history texts — rather than translated summaries or secondhand blog posts.

03
The institutions' own records

Where a claim belongs to a market, a city, a shrine or a heritage register, we read that body's own publication in Japanese — the market's history of its own opening, the prefecture's registration notice, the festival organiser's account — rather than an English article about it. Publisher and date are recorded with the fact.

Our Method

How we verify a claim

  1. Write down the claim. State precisely what is being asserted — a date, a count, a temperature, a rule — before checking anything.
  2. Go to the publisher's original text. Find the ministry report, market announcement, or academic source directly — not a news summary of it.
  3. Record the publisher, the publication date, and the URL. So the claim can be checked again later, by us or by a reader.
  4. Name the publisher in the sentence. The source appears in the prose itself — "Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare states that…" — not only in a footnote.
  5. Cut what cannot be confirmed. If a number cannot be traced to a publisher, it does not appear in the piece, however useful it would be.
Boundaries

What we will not do

  • We do not lift another outlet's summary without checking the underlying source ourselves.
  • We do not change a ranking or a mention in exchange for payment, meals, or hospitality from a restaurant.
  • We do not publish AI-generated text as finished work — every draft is fact-checked against the sources above, read a second time by someone other than the writer, and answered for by the desk that publishes it.
Public Data

Where our numbers come from

Washoku heritage status
UNESCO inscribed washoku — Japan's traditional dietary culture — on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list on 4 December 2013, according to Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Anisakis and marinades
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare states that vinegar, salting, soy sauce, and wasabi do not kill Anisakis larvae.
Anisakis and temperature
The same ministry advises that freezing at -20°C for 24 hours or more, or heating to 70°C (or 60°C for one minute), is effective against Anisakis.
Sushi restaurants abroad
Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries counted approximately 181,000 Japanese restaurants outside Japan, in a survey published on 28 November 2025 (Reiwa 7).
Toyosu Market opening
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market, the Toyosu Market opened on 11 October 2018.
Visitors to Japan
The Japan National Tourism Organization recorded 42,683,600 foreign visitors to Japan in 2025.

See the full list of publications

Accountability

Corrections

If a fact in this piece turns out to be wrong, we do not delete the error quietly. We add a dated correction note at the top of the article explaining what changed and why. Our full approach is set out in the editorial policy.

Read the editorial policy

Last updated:

Authors Sources Editorial Policy
編集部
Sushi Journal Editorial Desk / 鮨ジャーナル編集部

Sushi Journal is an English-language publication on the craft, culture and vocabulary of sushi, written and edited in Tokyo from primary Japanese sources — government and market data, and the standard trade literature.