At 5 a.m. in Tokyo, earlier than most commuters had poured their first cup of espresso, a bell rang on the Toyosu fish market and a single bluefin tuna rewrote public sale historical past. The 243-kilogram fish offered for 510 million yen, or about $3.2 million, on the market’s first public sale of the 12 months. The worth was so excessive it eclipsed each earlier file inside seconds, turning a routine New 12 months ritual into a worldwide spectacle earlier than dawn.
Tuna fish turns a daybreak public sale right into a bidding warfare
The profitable bid got here from Kiyomura Corp., which operates the Sushi Zanmai chain, and its president Kiyoshi Kimura, a well-recognized presence at Tokyo’s New 12 months auctions. Kimura has made a behavior of bidding aggressively for the 12 months’s first tuna, and this time he outdid even himself, surpassing the file he set in 2019. As patrons circled rows of headless, torpedo-shaped fish, the bidding escalated quickly, pushed as a lot by symbolism as by seafood.
Picture: Getty Photographs
Why this tuna commanded such an excessive worth
The tuna was caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan, a fishing space famed for bluefin prized by high sushi cooks. Earlier than bidding, patrons examined the flesh by sight and contact, judging color, texture and fats content material. At greater than $13,000 per kilogram, the value mirrored not solely high quality but in addition the status of securing the one most talked-about fish of the 12 months.
A practice constructed on timing, luck and a spotlight
Tokyo’s New 12 months tuna public sale is much less about on a regular basis market economics and extra about timing and that means. A whole lot of tuna are offered day by day at far decrease costs, however the first public sale carries a popularity for luck and visibility. This 12 months, the second arrived quietly, earlier than breakfast, but the picture of 1 tuna fetching thousands and thousands travelled the world inside hours, as soon as once more proving how a daybreak ritual can command international consideration.
