It may sound just bizarre but yes, this year a giant tune was sold for more than a whopping $320,000 at a Japan market. We are talking about Tokyo’s world-famous Tsukiji fish market that held its last pre-dawn New Year auction. It is the last auction for world’s biggest fish market as it will move to Toyusu, a former gas plant a bit further east, on October 11.
The market, which opened in 1935, is best known for its pre-dawn daily auctions of tuna, caught from all corners of the ocean, for use by everyone from top Michelin-star sushi chefs to ordinary grocery stores. Hence, in its last auction, an 880 pounds ( 400 kilograms) bluefin tuna was sold for a mammoth 36.5 million yen ($320,000). The bluefin tuna is a threatened species that was caught off northern Aomori prefecture. “It’s the best feeling,” Akifumi Sakagami, head chef at a sushi restaurant in the Ginza shopping district which paid for the tuna was quoted as saying by AFP after the giant fish was sliced into several pieces for delivery. “We wanted to get the number-one tuna at the first auction of the year at Tsukiji… because this is the last New Year auction,” he said, adding that the restaurant owner had a budget of 100 million yen ($886,000). “Tsukiji is the world’s number-one fish market. It’s in a very convenient location. It’s sad that it will be closed down,” Sakagami said.
On the auction day, buyers in rubber boots inspected the quality of the giant fresh and frozen tunas by examining the neatly cut tail end with flashlights and rubbing slices between their fingers. At 5:30 am, auctioneers rang handbells to signal the start of the auction and buyers began a flurry of bidding with hand signals for their preferred tunas.
Last year’s New Year auction was supposed to be the last at Tsukiji’s current location, as was the New Year auction the year before. The market’s shift to a new facility on a former gas plant site on Tokyo Bay has been repeatedly delayed due to concerns over soil contamination.
As per Associated Press, last year’s New Year auction was supposed to be the last at Tsukiji’s current location, as was the New Year auction the year before. The market’s shift to a new facility on a former gas plant site on Tokyo Bay has been repeatedly delayed due to concerns over soil contamination. Japanese are the biggest consumers of the torpedo-shaped bluefin tuna, and surging consumption here and overseas has led to overfishing of the species. Experts warn it faces possible extinction, with stocks of Pacific bluefin depleted by more than 97 percent from their pre-industrial levels.