TOKYO — Two sushi bar owners paid more than $100,000 for a Japanese bluefin tuna at a Tokyo fish auction Monday, several times the average price and the highest in nearly a decade, market officials said. The 282-pound (128-kilogram) premium tuna caught off the northern coast of Oma fetched 9.63 million yen ($104,700), the highest since 2001, when another Japanese bluefin tuna brought an all-time record of 20 million yen, market official Takashi Yoshida said. Yoshida said the extravagant purchase — about $370 per pound — went to a Hong Kong sushi bar owner and his Japanese competitor who reached a peaceful settlement to share the big fish. The Hong Kong buyer also paid the highest price at last year's new year event at Tokyo's Tsukiji market, the world's largest fish seller, which holds near-daily auctions. A slightly bigger imported bluefin caught off the eastern United States sold for $15,400 in Monday's auction. "It was the best tuna of the day, but the price shot up because of the shortage of domestic bluefin," Yoshida said, citing rough weather at the end of December.

Buyers vied for only three Oma bluefin tuna Monday, compared to 41 last year. Typical tuna prices at Tokyo fish markets are less than $25 per pound. But bluefin tuna is considered by gourmets to be the best, and when sliced up into small pieces and served on rice it goes for very high prices in restaurants. Premium fish — sometimes sliced up while the customers watch — also have advertising value, underscoring a restaurant's quality, like a rare wine. Due to growing concerns over the impact of commercial fishing on the bluefin variety's survival, members of international tuna conservation organizations, including Japan, have agreed to cut their bluefin catch quota for 2009 by 20 percent to 22,000 tons. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Ships from and sold by Giovannis Fish Market. This Ahi, otherwise known as "Yellowfin Tuna" is flown in overnight from Hawaii or Fiji and cut to order just for you.

This is the premier choice for sushi lovers. Among the largest in the tuna species, its purplish flesh and sweet meat are ideal not only for sushi lovers but is absolutely wonderful seared and left rare on the inside. Ahi Yellowfin Tuna is also excellent grilled. Shipping Weight: 6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) #163,979 in Grocery & Gourmet Food (See Top 100 in Grocery & Gourmet Food) in Grocery & Gourmet Food > Canned, Jarred & Packaged Foods > Meat, Poultry & Seafood > Seafood > Tuna Fish Most Recent Customer Reviews Very fresh and delicious tuna The product and the experience was excellent. The transaction went smoothly and the product was most acceptable. I was surprised at the quality...ate it for three days and it kept its texture and flavor....I will likely order it again when I get in the mood for sashimi. nice color / grate flavor nice cut of meat / taste wonderfull /only problem wos one side bluddy /still had skin but some people like that/ over all awesome would of gave it 5 stars...

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item? KOKUHO RICE SUSHI, 5 LB Nagai Deluxe Sushi Nori, 50 Count ONE ORGANIC Sushi Nori Premium Roasted Organic Seaweed (50 Full Sheets) BambooMN Brand - Sushi Rolling Kit - 2x rolling mats, 1x rice paddle, 1x spreader - natural See and discover other items: tuna calorieyo sushi vouchers ukFresh from Hawaii this tuna is available by the pound or the loin.  sushi to go pozueloAlways fresh perfect raw or lightly seared. where to buy sushi grade fish in phoenixIn 2013, Kiyoshi Kimura, the owner of a Japanese sushi restaurant chain, paid $1.76 million for the first bluefin at Tsukiji, which weighed 489 pounds. where to buy sushi grade fish in manchester nh

Kimura had paid $736,000—a world-record price at the time—for the first tuna of 2012. That fish weighed 593 pounds. It's no surprise, then, that journalists were steeling themselves for what was sure to come on January 4, 2014: If the past decade's trend in pricing continued, this year's first tuna would surely fetch more than a million dollars. buy sushi grade fish atlantaBut the Tsukiji fish market bucked tradition this weekend and sold its first tuna to Kimura, yet again, for a mere $70,000. sashimi grade fish deliveredThat's still way more money than most bluefin go for in Japan. jiro dreams sushi cameraBut compared to what everyone was expecting—an extravagant sum to start off the new year and remind us that these are the most prized fish in the sea—that's one crazy cheap tuna. 

Although the significance of the almost-$2 million tuna in 2013 was recognized worldwide, not everyone agreed on what that said about the actual value of global tuna stocks. It was tempting to see the price surge as a function of the fish's rarity, but then why weren't restaurants raising the prices of the bluefin dishes on their menus?Andrew David Thaler, who writes about the ocean on his blog Southern Fried Science, had this to say about the many factors at play in the Tsukiji auction last January: I’m certain that we’ll see this number presented as an argument against bluefin tuna fishing, as an example of an industry out-of-control, and as a symbol of how ruthlessly we'll hunt the last few members of a species to put on our dinner plates. These issues are reflected in the tuna market, but I want to urge caution in drawing too many conclusions from this record breaking number. There are several issues in play at the first tuna auction of the year, and only some of them relate to the tuna fishery.

Among the patrons of the Tsukiji fish auction, it is considered an honor to buy the first bluefin of the new years, and bidding wars reflect this fight for status. The massive international headlines that follow the purchase of such a fish is free advertising for the winner. As many auction-goers know, landing a high, early win is a way of marking your territory and letting your competitors know that you have the bankroll to push them out of a bidding war. If $1.8 million is actually what this fish is worth to the consumer, it would sell for a hefty $345 at the dinner table, minimum. The owner, Kiyoshi Kimura, reports that the tuna will be sold at a huge loss–about $4.60 per serving. All three species of bluefin tuna are currently overfished, and over the last few years attempts to protect bluefin tuna have been thwarted by fishing interests in Japan, New Zealand, the United States, and Mediterranean countries, among others. While this record breaking sale should serve a clarion call for increased scrutiny of the global tuna trade, it does not accurately reflect the market value of the fish.

What should we make of the dramatic nosedive in bluefin bidding at this year's auction? To answer that, we need to understand how this species rose to such prestige in the first place.  In the 1960s, no one wanted bluefin. In the United States, the fish sold for pennies per pound, and it was usually ground up for cat food. Japan fished for it, but few people there liked the bluefin's bloody, fatty meat. Then sushi bars started cropping up in America, and Americans developed a taste for toro—the prime meat of the bluefin's belly. By the 1970s, the Japanese had also developed a taste for bluefin. All of a sudden, bluefin was one of the most sought-after fish not only by Japanese fishermen but also by American and Canadian ones. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, between 1970 and 1990 fishing for bluefin in the Western Atlantic increased by more than 2,000 percent. The average price paid to Atlantic fishermen for bluefin exported to Japan rose by 10,000 percent.