A Japanese sushi restaurant bid 510 million yen ($A4.9 million) for a single bluefin tuna, by far the highest-ever price paid at the annual New Year auction at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market.
Weighing 243 kg, the prized catch went to Kiyomura Corp, the Tokyo-based operator of popular sushi restaurant chain Sushizanmai.
“I hope the economy will get better this year. The Takaichi administration pledged to work, work, work, so Sushizanmai will work, work, work too,” said Kiyomura chief Kiyoshi Kimura, referring to the four-month-old government of Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister.
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“I hope this bid will cheer everyone up.”
The eye-popping bid beat Kiyomura’s own previous record of 333.6 million yen in 2019.
“I thought that (the winning bid) would come in a little bit lower, maybe around 400 million or 300 million yen but it turned out to be over 500 million,” Kimura, known as the “Tuna King”, told reporters on Monday.
The giant tuna was transported to Sushizanmai’s head branch, then sliced up and distributed to its restaurants nationwide.
The tuna dishes would be sold to customers at the usual price, Kimura said.
The pricey fish was caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan, a region widely regarded for producing some of the country’s finest tuna, and costs 2.1 million yen ($A20,000) per kilogram.
“It’s in part for good luck,” Kimura said.
“But when I see a good looking tuna, I cannot resist … I haven’t sampled it yet, but it’s got to be delicious.”
Hundreds of tuna are sold daily at the early morning auction, but prices are significantly higher than usual for the Oma tuna, especially at the celebratory New Year auction.
Due to the popularity of tuna for sushi and sashimi, Pacific bluefin tuna was previously a threatened species due to climate change and overfishing, but its stock is recovering following conservation efforts.
