This is one big fish that didn’t get away.
A massive bluefin tuna caught off the coast of northeastern Japan sold at auction for a record 56.49 million yen, or about $736,000. Yesterday’s auction was the first of the at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market.
The incredible price for the 593-pound tuna beat last year’s record of 32.49 million yen.
The price translates to 210,000 yen per kilogram, or $1,238 per pound, which is also a record according to market official Yutaka Hasegawa.
Kiyoshi Kimura, the winning bidder and president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said he wanted to give Japan an economic boost after last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.
“Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster,” Kimura told the Associated Press. “Japan needs to hang in there. So I tried hard myself and ended up buying the most expensive one.”
More in the video below.
Get Blippitt via RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and be sure to get our Daily Email Broadcast.
