• This year’s most expensive tuna sold at 7,360,000 JPY or roughly $70,325 US dollars.
• The tuna weighed about 230 kg.
• The price per kilogram was about 32,000 JPY or roughly $305 US dollars.
• The tuna came from Ohma in Aomori prefecture.
• The tuna was bought by the sushi chain, Sushi Zanmai.
• Sushi Zanmai has bought the winning tuna the last three years in a row.
• This tuna however was NOT the most expensive tuna per kg. The most expensive tuna per kg. sold at the new year’s first tuna auction went for about 40,000 JPY or about $382 US dollars. This tuna weighed in at about 168 kg.
• Last year’s record tuna sold for 155,400,000 JPY or roughly $1.76 million US Dollars.
• This year’s tuna came in at about 1/20th of last year’s price.

Two other interesting points that came up in today’s news. One, was that the last few years Sushi Zanmai would compete against a Hong Kong sushi shop called Itamae Sushi. This year Itamae Sushi did not participate in the auction for the winning tuna.

Also, it was noted that last year, due to poor weather conditions, that there were only 4 bluefin tuna from Ohma were offered at the auction. However, this year, fishing conditions were more agreeable and each tuna wholesaler each brought in about 30 fish.

More information on 2013’s Tsukiji Market Record Tuna by Numbers.