Bluefin tuna sells for record amount at Japanese auction
A bluefin tuna, weighing 243kg (535lbs) has sold for a record 510 million yen (£2.4 million) at the Tokyo Toyosu fish market’s first auction of the year. The winning bidder for the fish Kiyomura Corp, whose owner, Kiyoshi Kimura, also runs popular Japanese restaurant chain, Sushi Zanmai.
Kimura has also been the winning bidder at previous auctions, having broken his own record of 334 million yen (£1.6 million) from 2019. He had hoped to pay a little less for the bluefin tuna, he told reports, only for the price to shoot up “before you knew it.”
The auction began with a bell ringing with the floor filling up with multiple fish. The animals had their tails cut, allowing bidders to examine meat details including colour, texture, and fat content as they observed the options.
The record-breaking bluefin tuna was fished off the coast of Oma in the north of Japan. The area is known for producing some of the best quality tuna in the country, charging 2.1 million yen (£9,016) per pound.
“It’s in part for good luck,” Kimura said. “But when I see a good-looking tuna, I cannot resist. I haven’t sampled it yet, but it’s got to be delicious.”
The auctions sell hundreds of tuna daily. Around the new year celebrations, prices can be much higher. Because of the popularity of tuna for sushi and sashimi, the Pacific bluefin tuna was once classified a threatened species due to overfishing and climate change. But conservation efforts have allowed it to bounce back in numbers.
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