At the first auction of 2026 at the Toyosu fish market in Tokyo, a new historical record for the price of bluefin tuna was set. A fish weighing 243 kilograms was purchased for 510 million yen (approximately 3.2 million dollars). This is stated in the Associated Press material, writes UNN.
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The winner of Monday's pre-dawn bidding was Kiyomura Corp., which owns the famous Sushi Zanmai chain of sushi bars. Its owner, Kiyoshi Kimura, surpassed his own previous record of 334 million yen set in 2019.
The fish was caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan. The cost of one kilogram of this lot was a record 2.1 million yen (about 13,360 dollars).
The high price of Oma tuna is due to the prestige of the first New Year's auction, which traditionally attracts the attention of the world's media. Despite the high demand for this species for making sushi and sashimi, the population of Pacific bluefin tuna has begun to recover thanks to international efforts to conserve the species, which was previously endangered.