Bluefin tuna sold for $320,000 in 1st Tsukiji sale of 2018

Kiyoshi Kimura (2nd from left), president of Kiyomura Co., poses with the bluefin tuna at his Sushi Zanmai restaurant near Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo last January 5, 2016. Bluefin tuna auction hs been among the biggest of Japan’’s many New Year holiday rituals. The huge, glistening tuna was auctioned for about 14 million Japanese yen ($118,000) at Tokyo’’s 80-year-old Tsukiji market. For the 2018 sale, however, an 892-pound bluefin tuna was sold for 36.5 million yen ($320,000). (AP FILE PHOTO)

TOKYO — Local media reports has said that an 892-pound (405 kilogram) bluefin tuna has been sold for 36.5 million yen or $320,000 in what may really be Tsukiji market’s last auction at its current site in downtown Tokyo.

The winning bid on Friday for the prized but threatened species was well below the record 155.4 million yen bid at 2013’s annual New Year auction. This year’s top per kilogram price, for a smaller tuna, was $1,419 per kilogram, compared with about $7,930 per kilogram for the 2013 record-setting auction price.

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.                   /kga