The most expensive seafood at Tokyo's largest fish market was sold for 1 ton at an auction on the first day of business.
The giant bluefin tuna, weighing about 525 pounds, was purchased by seafood wholesaler Yamayuki and a sushi chain for nearly $800,000.
For the fourth year in a row, Yamasachi and sushi chain Onodera Group stock the market's most expensive fish for the new season.
“If we were going to do it, we wanted to win,'' Yamayuki President Yukitaka Yamaguchi told the large group of reporters gathered after the auction ended.
The next destination for the giant tuna caught off the coast of Aomori Prefecture is Onodera, a Michelin-starred sushi restaurant in the upscale Ginza district of the Japanese capital. Japan Times is written.
Although the record price for the quarter-ton bluefin tuna did not go down as a record, it was actually the fourth highest auction price since records began in 1999. This was the highest price paid for tuna at the busy Toyosu market since then. The beginning of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
The tuna sold for more than three times the price of the most expensive fish sold at the first auction of 2023, as the market rebounds as the pandemic puts downward pressure on fish prices, along with Japan's tourism and food and beverage industries. Expectations have increased.
The record was set in 2019 when Japanese sushi restaurant chain owner Kiyoshi Kimura, known as the “Tuna King,” paid 333.6 million yen ($3.1 million) for a 613-pound bluefin tuna at an annual auction. However, he later admitted to reporters that he had paid five times that amount. he expected.
“The tuna looks very fresh and delicious, but it seems like it was overcooked,'' says Kimura. Said It was taken off the market after the 2019 auction.
