Tokyo – A giant bluefin tuna sold for 74.2 million yen (636,000 dollars) in Tokyo on Thursday in the first auction of the year at the city’s main fish market.
The 212-kilogram tuna, valued at 350,000 yen per kilogram at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market, was sold to major restaurant chain Sushi Zanmai.
The fish was caught off the coast of northern Japan in waters known for being one of the best tuna fishing grounds in the country.
A file photo of fishmongers displaying massive tuna loins for potential customers as they walk through the aisles at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo (Credit Image: © Eve Edelheit/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire)
“I feel it is a bit expensive but I’m glad to have made a winning bid for the well-shaped and good-sized tuna,” company president Kiyoshi Kimura told reporters. “I would like our customers to taste it soon.”
Kimura bought the most expensive tuna for the sixth straight year in the first auction of the year at the market.
Thursday’s sale was the second-highest price paid for a tuna fish in Japan, since authorities started taking records in 1999. Top price went to a sale in 2013 that reached 155.4 million yen.
A throng of bidders clapped to celebrate the sale at Tsukiji market, whose relocation has been delayed due to concerns about pollution at a planned site in Toyosu, 2 kilometres to the south-east.
The Tokyo metropolitan government is expected to relocate the market later this year.
-dpa
