Sakai Fish Farm

Sakai Fish Farm in Mihara, Hiroshima is the Kohaku and Sanke benchmark. Sakai-bred koi have taken Grand Champion at the All Japan Nishikigoi Show 13 times through 2024, starting in 2000, and that record is the reason the Sakai name carries the price it does. ChampKoi imports koi from Sakai Fish Farm.

The family has raised carp in the hills of Mihara since around 1890, when Ichiroji Sakai started with food Magoi. His descendants moved into coloured koi, and Koji Sakai made Nishikigoi the whole business. Kentaro Sakai, born 1974, joined in 1996 after two years working for a koi dealer in Seattle and is the fifth generation to run it.

Scale is part of the story. The farm lists 80 mud ponds on about 22.5 hectares for growing on, another 130 fry ponds on roughly 10 hectares, 15 greenhouses with 175 indoor ponds, and a 29-pond Champion House. Sakai was early to what it calls scientific breeding: tracked bloodlines, data-driven feeding, and a harvest-to-auction calendar that brings dealers from around the world in March, October and November.

The fish people know: S Legend, a Sakai Kohaku, won Grand Champion in 2017 and again in 2019 at 101 cm and sold for 203 million yen. A metre-long Sakai Sanke took the 2023 title, the first Sanke to win in about 20 years. Buy Sakai for Kohaku and Sanke with jumbo potential and bloodlines you can trace. They breed Showa too, but Showa is not what built the name.