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A giant bluefin tuna sold for a record $396,000 today in the first auction of the year at Tokyo's fish market.
At 32.49 million Japanese yen, it's the highest price any fish has ever sold for since the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market started keeping track in 1999.
The fish weighs 754 pounds, so the auction price breaks down to about $527 per pound of meat.
It was an exceptionally large fish, market spokesman Yutaka Hasegawa told MSNBC. But we were all surprised by the price.
Bluefin tuna is prized by sushi aficionados, and the fish sold today was considered excellent quality, caught off Hokkaido in northern Japan, a Tokyo restaurant owner behind the winning bid told CNN. Yosuke Imada, owner of the upscale Kyubei sushi restaurant, will split the fish with his co-bidder, a Hong Kong-based sushi chain.
With its opening bell just before dawn, the Tokyo fish market's first auction of the year is considered symbolic and lucky, and it often fetches record prices. The bluefin's record sale today also reflects increasing demand across Asia for high-quality tuna meat, especially in Japan and in China's growing market.
There's a real mood of celebration with the start of the new year, and that helped push the price higher, another Tokyo fish market spokesman told Reuters.
Bluefin tuna is especially prized in Japan, the world's biggest consumer of seafood. Japan consumes more than half of the world's bluefin catch each year.
But environmental groups say the practice is unethical and hurts the ocean's ecosystem. Bluefin tuna are huge, sophisticated animals with well-developed brains and nervous systems. Overfishing has led to a dwindling bluefin population, driving up prices and triggering many governments to impose quotas and restrictions on fishing.
Link: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/05/754-pound-bluefin-tuna-sells-for-record-396-000-in-tokyo/
At 32.49 million Japanese yen, it's the highest price any fish has ever sold for since the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market started keeping track in 1999.
The fish weighs 754 pounds, so the auction price breaks down to about $527 per pound of meat.
It was an exceptionally large fish, market spokesman Yutaka Hasegawa told MSNBC. But we were all surprised by the price.
Bluefin tuna is prized by sushi aficionados, and the fish sold today was considered excellent quality, caught off Hokkaido in northern Japan, a Tokyo restaurant owner behind the winning bid told CNN. Yosuke Imada, owner of the upscale Kyubei sushi restaurant, will split the fish with his co-bidder, a Hong Kong-based sushi chain.
With its opening bell just before dawn, the Tokyo fish market's first auction of the year is considered symbolic and lucky, and it often fetches record prices. The bluefin's record sale today also reflects increasing demand across Asia for high-quality tuna meat, especially in Japan and in China's growing market.
There's a real mood of celebration with the start of the new year, and that helped push the price higher, another Tokyo fish market spokesman told Reuters.
Bluefin tuna is especially prized in Japan, the world's biggest consumer of seafood. Japan consumes more than half of the world's bluefin catch each year.
But environmental groups say the practice is unethical and hurts the ocean's ecosystem. Bluefin tuna are huge, sophisticated animals with well-developed brains and nervous systems. Overfishing has led to a dwindling bluefin population, driving up prices and triggering many governments to impose quotas and restrictions on fishing.
Link: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/05/754-pound-bluefin-tuna-sells-for-record-396-000-in-tokyo/
