Sushi chain pays $1.3 million for motorcycle-sized tuna at Tokyo auction

TOKYO — A bluefin tuna sold for more than $1.3 million at an annual fish auction in Tokyo, in what organizers said was the second-highest bid since the event began in 1999.

The 608-pound bluefin tuna, which is about the size and weight of a motorcycle, was purchased for 207 million yen ($1,316,835) at the new year auction at the Toyosu market, the main fish market in Tokyo, by seafood wholesaler Yamayuki and Michelin-starred sushi chain operator Onodera Group.

The two companies have won the auction for five consecutive years.

“The first tuna is meant to bring good fortune,” Shinji Nagao, president of the Onodera Group, told reporters at the market right after the auction. “Our hope is that by eating this tuna everyone will have a good year.”

According to local media, the highest-ever bid at the yearly auction was 333.6 million yen ($3.1 million at the time) in 2019, a few months after the famed Tsukiji Market moved to Toyosu. It was paid by Kiyoshi Kimura, the head of another chain of sushi restaurants who is known as the “Tuna King” of Japan.

Prices then dropped in the following years as dining out was limited by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo, and Kim Gu reported from Hong Kong.