Tuna sells for record $3 million in Japan's New Year tuna auction

The owner of a Japanese sushi restaurant chain has set a record by paying more than $3 million for a bluefin tuna in the year’s first auction at Tokyo’s new fish market, exceeding his own record price of 2013.

However, according to Toyosu staff, the price of the highest-selling tuna wentwas around only 10 per centof the highest-selling tuna price of 2020, in which a bluefin tuna was sold at 193 million yen ($1.87 million), the second-highest price in history.

For this year's auction, fish wholesalers wore masks and sanitised their hands as they examined the texture of tail meat from fresh and frozentunaby touching, smelling and sometimes tasting pieces of it.

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Spectators were not allowed to attend the event, now held at a market called Toyosu after the city's world-famous fish market relocated there from its old site, Tsukiji, in 2018.

Kiyoshi Kimura, who owns the Sushizanmai chain, paid 333.6 million yen ($3.1 million) for the 278-kg (613-lb) fish caught off the coast of northern Japan’s Aomori prefecture, or double what he had paid six years ago.

“The tuna looks so tasty and very fresh, but I think I did too much,” Kimura told reporters outside the market later.

“I expected it would be between 30 million and 50 million yen or 60 million yen at the highest, but it ended up five times more.”

Last year, Kimura paid $1.8 million for a 276-kilogram (608-pound) bluefin, and in 2019 he paid a record $3.1 million for a 278-kilogram (613-pound) fish.

Saturday’s event was the first New Year auction of the Toyosu market after the famed Tsukiji fish market shut last year to provide temporary parking for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

One major bidder that owns a number of popular restaurant chains, Kiyomura Corp, said that they intentionally refrained from bidding high this year out of fear that large numbers of customers would be inspired to flock to their restaurants since high bids for high-quality tuna usually get a lot of attention in the press.

Kimura usually uses his purchases to secure national news coverage for himself and his successful sushi chain.

Normally, after winning the annual bidding war and taking his expensive investment back to one of his restaurants, he fillets the fish with a sword-like blade, creates sushi out of it and serves it to customers at no extra charge, all in front of an army of television cameras.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a dramatic slump in demand for tuna, as Tuna prices dropped 8.4 per centin July 2020 from a year earlier,Japanese government data showed.Japan's tuna imports fell 18 per centin the first six months of 2020 from a year earlier, according to finance ministry data.

As of Tuesday,Japanhas reported 249,246 cases of coronavirus and 3,693 deaths.Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that a state of emergency declaration for Tokyo and the surrounding area would be decided on Thursday, local media reported.