A 243kg bluefin tuna has smashed records by selling for £2.4m at Tokyo’s first fish auction of the year.
The fish was bought at the Toyosu market on Monday by Kiyomura Corp, operator of the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain.
“The year’s first tuna brings good luck,” Kiyoshi Kimura, the company’s president, also known as the “Tuna King”, said after securing the winning bid.
“I hope the economy will get better this year. The Takaichi administration pledged to work, work, work, so Sushi Zanmai will work, work, work too,” he added, referring to the new government of Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister. “I hope this bid will cheer everyone up.”
The record-breaking fish is being sliced and sold for £2.4 per roll at Sushi Zanmai – Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP
The sale eclipsed Mr Kimura’s previous record of 333.6 million yen (£1.58m) set in 2019. He admitted he had been taken aback by the final price. “I’d thought we would be able to buy a little cheaper, but the price soared before you knew it,” he told reporters.
The auction has a reputation for eye-watering opening prices, fuelled by media attention and the symbolic value attached to the first tuna of the year.
Last year’s top fish sold for 207 million yen, after prices fell sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic as restaurants scaled back operations.
This year’s winning tuna was caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan, a region prized for producing some of the country’s finest bluefin, which cost 2.1 million yen (£84,400) per kilogram.
A Sushi Zanmai chef shows off a piece of the bluefin tuna – The Asahi Shimbun
Within hours of the sale, it was being sliced and served at Sushi Zanmai restaurants selling for 500 yen (£2.4) per roll. Customers queued to sample a piece.
“I feel like I’ve begun the year in a good way after eating something so auspicious as the year starts,” said 19-year-old Minami Sugiyama, speaking to AFP from one of the restaurants in Tsukiji.
Another customer, Kiyoshi Nishimura, agreed. “Even without dipping it in soy sauce, there’s sweetness. And the richness, the texture… it just makes you feel happy.”
The sale has prompted comment on the state of bluefin tuna stocks.
Dave Gershman, from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries team, said the species had been “near collapse” but was now showing signs of recovery following a 2017 management plan.
He said the aim must be to “lock in a healthy population and ensure that the species never again faces the overfishing of the past”.
