A Japanese sushi entrepreneur paid a record $3.2 million for a giant bluefin tuna on Monday at the prestigious annual New Year’s auction at Tokyo’s main fish market, breaking the previous record.
Dave Gershman of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries team used news of the auction to highlight that Pacific bluefin tuna stocks are improving after being “close to collapse.”
Self-proclaimed “Tuna King” Kiyoshi Kimura’s sushi chain paid top dollar for the 243-kilogram (536-pound) fish caught off Japan’s northern coast.
“I thought we could get it cheaper, but before I knew it, the price soared,” Kimura said after the predawn auction at Tokyo’s main fish market.
“I’m surprised by the price… I hope that by eating auspicious tuna, as many people as possible will feel energetic,” he told reporters.
The 510.3 million yen price at the New Year’s auction was the highest since comparable data began to be collected in 1999.
The previous record was 333.6 million yen for a 278-kilogram bluefin tuna in 2019, when the fish market moved from the traditional Tsukiji area in central Tokyo to a more modern facility.
Last year the highest bidder paid 207 million yen for a 276 kilogram bluefin tuna.
Shortly after this year’s auction, the tuna was butchered and made into sushi, selling for about 500 yen ($3) per roll.
“After eating something so auspicious for the New Year, I feel like the new year has already begun,” 19-year-old Minamisugiyama told AFP at a table at Tsukiji’s Kimura restaurant.
Colleague Kiyoshi Nishimura agrees.
The 40-year-old Shinto priest said: “Even without dipping it in soy sauce, it has a sweet taste. And the richness, the texture…it just makes you feel happy.”
With restaurants scaling back operations during the Covid-19 pandemic, New Year’s tuna is selling for a fraction of its usual maximum price.
Gershman said in an emailed statement that the 2017 recovery plan “is working, and if policymakers take further action in 2026, the future for Pacific bluefin tuna will be bright.”
He added: “This year, fisheries managers from Japan, the United States, South Korea and other countries across the Pacific should agree on a long-term, sustainable management plan to lock in healthy stocks and ensure that the species never faces the overfishing of the past.”
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