TOKYO: The New Year’s tuna auction was held at Tokyo’s Toyosu wholesale market on Friday morning, with the highest price for a bluefin tuna topping 100 million yen for the first time since 2020, before the spread of COVID-19.

A 238-kilogram tuna from Oma in Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan, fetched 114.24 million yen, or 480,000 yen per kilogram, the fourth highest ever.

The winning bid was made by intermediate wholesaler Yamayuki for the fourth straight year. The tuna was outstanding in “freshness and color,” said Yamayuki president Yukitaka Yamaguchi.

The tuna will be served at Ginza Onodera, a sushi restaurant brand of Onodera Group Co., which asked Yamayuki to purchase the fish.

A total of 140 domestic wild tuna were shipped to the Toyosu market on the first auction day of the year, about 30 percent fewer than the year before.

Among products other than tuna, a 400-gram box of sea urchin from Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, was sold for a record 1.5 million yen.

Prior to the start of the New Year’s auction, operators at the market observed a moment of silence to pay tribute to the victims of a powerful earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, on New Year’s Day.

JIJI Press