Video: watson/Hanna Dedial
Jan 5, 2026, 10:52 amJanuary 5, 2026, 12:00 p.m
A huge bluefin tuna was auctioned in Tokyo for a record price of 510.3 million yen (around 2.58 million francs).
The high prices at the New Year’s auction in Tokyo are not due to the quality of the fish.Image: afp
The 243 kilogram animal was bought by the operator of the sushi restaurant chain Sushizanmai at the first auction this year at the Toyosu fish market in the Japanese capital. The price corresponds to around 10,605 CHF per kilogram. The fish was caught in Oma, one of the island kingdom’s best tuna fishing areas, on the northern tip of the main island of Honshu.
Clever PR campaign
Nowhere is so much bluefin tuna eaten as in Japan. For a long time, the fish were highly endangered and in some cases even threatened with extinction, especially due to overfishing for the sushi market. Thanks to stricter quotas, stocks are slowly recovering, but are still considered threatened.
The high prices at the New Year’s auction in Tokyo are not so much due to the quality of the fish. Rather, it is a targeted PR campaign at the start of the new financial year, which the media reports on every year.
Video: watson/Hanna Dedial
Tuna as a good luck charm
«The first tuna of the year brings luck. We hope that as many people as possible can enjoy it and be invigorated by it,” said the restaurant chain’s president, Kiyoshi Kimura. The fish is filleted and distributed to restaurants across the country. Despite the record expenditure, the company said it would sell the tuna to customers at the usual price, according to local media. Bid prices have recovered in recent years after a sharp drop caused by the coronavirus pandemic. (sda/dpa)
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