A 276 kg bluefin tuna sold for JPY 207 million (US$1.3 million) at this year’s first tuna auction on Tokyo’s Toyosu Fish Market, the second highest price paid for the prized fish on record.
The fish, which was caught off the coast of Oma in the northeastern prefecture of Aomori, was again bought by the Onodera Group, a Japanese company that runs sushi restaurants and other businesses. It’s the fifth time in a row that the company has won the auction, and the sixth time overall. It also triumphed in 2018.
Last year, Onodera Group paid over JPY 114 million for the auction’s top tuna.
The company said this year’s tuna will be served across multiple restaurants, including its Sushi Ginza Onodera Main Branch, Sushi Ginza Onodera Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto, and its conveyer belt sushi restaurant Ginza Onodera in Kyoto.
The record for the first bluefin of the New Year was set in 2019, when a fish fetched JPY 333.6 million.
