Tuna Sells for Record 330 M. Yen in New Year Auction at Toyosu

January 6, 2019

Tokyo--A 278-kilogram bluefin tuna caught off Oma, Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan, fetched a record 333.6 million yen in the first New Year auction at the Toyosu wholesale market in Tokyo's Koto Ward on Saturday.

With domestic sea urchin also selling for a record price, the Toyosu market got off to a good start this year.

At 5:10 a.m. (8:10 p.m. Friday GMT), the closely watched tuna auction began with the ring of a bell.

The auction turned out to be a straight fight between an intermediate wholesaler and Kiyomura, the operator of Sushizanmai, a popular sushi restaurant chain. As the competition went on, the bid price kept rising and exceeded 700,000 yen per kilogram, which was the highest price marked at the now-defunct Tsukiji market.

Kiyomura ended up winning the auction, at 1.2 million yen per kilogram. The price of the whole tuna was more than double the previous record of 155.4 million yen, set by the same sushi chain operator in 2013 at Tsukiji.

"I'm happy to get such a beautiful tuna although I didn't expect the price to rise this high," Kiyomura President Kiyoshi Kimura said. Areas off Oma is known as a major fishing ground for tuna.

Just before the tuna auction, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike visited the Toyosu market and delivered a speech before fishery industry officials.

"I hope to nurture Toyosu into a core market at a time when people's dietary habits and logistics operations are changing drastically," she said.

Besides bluefin tuna, sea urchin from Hokkaido, northern Japan, sold for 200,000 yen per some 300 grams in auction on Saturday, matching the record price marked at Toyosu on Oct. 11 last year, when the new market opened to take over the functions of the aging Tsukiji market in Chuo Ward in the Japanese capital. Jiji Press