Tuna sold for $320,000 in final New Year auction
Tokyo’s world-famous Tsukiji fish market held its last pre-dawn New Year’s auction on Friday before closing down for relocation, with the highest bidder paying more than $320,000 for a giant tuna.
After more than 80 years in operation, the world’s biggest fish market, a popular tourist attraction in an area packed with restaurants and shops, will move to Toyosu, a former gas plant, on October 11.
The market, which opened in 1935, is known for its predawn daily auctions of tuna, for use by everyone from top Michelin-star sushi chefs to ordinary grocery stores.
“We have to continue the Tsukiji brand and establish a new brand” at the new site, Shigeo Yokota, the representative of buyers at Tsukiji, said in his New Year speech.
“I’m proud to be standing here at this historic moment,” he added.
The highest bidder paid 36.5 million yen for a bluefin tuna -- a threatened species -weighing more than 400 kilogrammes caught off northern Aomori prefecture, according to the market.
“It’s the best feeling,” Akifumi Sakagami, head chef at a sushi restaurant in the Ginza shopping district which paid for the tuna, told 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
The Tsukiji market handles 480 kinds of seafood worth $14 million daily -- as well as 270 types of fruits and vegetables .