At the traditional auction of the first tuna of the year in the fish market of Tsukiji, Japan, a Bluefin tuna weighing 151 kilos reached the selling price of JPY 3.9 million (USD 36,000), therefore almost JPY 26,000 per kilo (USD 240/kg).
This Bluefin was caught in Aomori, located north of the Japanese archipelago and was the largest of the 3,600 imported and domestic tuna auctioned on Sunday January 4th at 05:00 local time, after a brief ceremony attended by hundreds of fish wholesalers from all over the country.
The Aomori Bluefin tuna almost exceeded by six times the fish caught in Spain, and air freighted to Japan, which used to obtain the highest auction prices at the Tsukiji market. However, also this year prices were still about 2,000 yen lower than previous years, which show an economic deflation process, a strong competition among the captures from different countries and a consumption drop.
There were more than 3,600 tuna species at the Tsukiji fish market, which had arrived from all over the world by sea and by air; 102 of these came from Spain and reached an average kilo price of JPY 4,500 (about USD 42 per kilo).
Estimates indicated that Japan consumes 600,000 tons annually of tuna, 50% of which is caught by Japan, and the rest is imported.