Japanese sushi chain pays record $4.9m for single tuna
A Japanese sushi restaurant bid 510 million yen ($4.9 million) for a single bluefin tuna; This is the highest price ever paid at the annual New Year’s auction at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market.
The prize, weighing 243 kg, was given to Kiyomura Corp, the Tokyo-based operator of the popular sushi restaurant chain Sushizanmai.
“I hope the economy will be better this year,” Kiyomura chief Kiyoshi Kimura said, referring to the four-month-old government of Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. Takaichi’s administration promised “work, work, work, so Sushizanmai will also work, work, work.”
“I hope this offer cheers everyone up.”
The eye-popping bid surpassed Kiyomura’s previous record of 333.6 million yen in 2019.
“I thought (the winning bid) would be a little lower, maybe around 400 million or 300 million yen, but it turned out to be over 500 million,” Kimura, known as the “King of the Danube,” told reporters on Monday.
The giant tuna was transported to Sushizanmai’s main branch, then sliced and distributed to restaurants nationwide.
Kimura said the tuna dishes will be sold to customers at regular prices.
The expensive fish is caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan, where it is widely considered to produce some of the country’s best tuna, and costs 2.1 million yen ($20,000) per kilogram.
“This is partly for good luck,” Kimura said.
“But I can’t resist when I see a nice-looking tuna… I haven’t tasted it yet, but it must be delicious.”
Hundreds of tuna fish are sold at auctions held early in the morning every day, but Oma tuna prices are much higher than usual, especially during the New Year’s celebration auction.
Due to tuna’s popularity for sushi and sashimi, Pacific bluefin tuna was previously a threatened species due to climate change and overfishing, but its stocks are recovering following conservation efforts.
– with AP
