A 212-kilo bluefin tuna found a buyer this Thursday at a traditional New Year’s auction in Tokyo for 36 million yen (257,000 euros), a price that almost doubles that of 2022. The prestigious Onodera Group sushi restaurant and the Japanese wholesaler Yamayuki won the day, as in last year’s edition.
The strong increase in one year reflects an improvement in the market trend, after three years of falling prices due to the pandemic, which particularly affected the Japanese restaurant sector.
Record in 2019
But the absolute record for this tuna auction, reached in 2019 before the pandemic (333 million yen, or 2.7 million euros at the time), is still a long way off.
Self-proclaimed “tuna king” Kiyoshi Kimura has long reigned supreme over this symbolic event, offering the winner heavy publicity, and it was this restaurateur who paid the record price in 2019.
But in recent years, Kiyoshi Kimura has been less wasteful, citing the pandemic.
Source: BFM TV
