TUNA AUCTION

by Ala on in Japan - Tokyo

I got up as early as at 2:50 am to be sure not to miss my chance to get to see the tuna auction at  TSUKIJI  FISH MARKET IN TOKYO, the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world.  Luckily I was just about the 70th person there and I was granted the entry.  Each morning only 120 people are allowed to enter. First-come, first-served and no exception!  The first 60 early risers already wear green vests and I am getting a blue vest. That means I will be in the second group to enter for 25 minutes to see all the action at the auction!  Note – genuine real auction going on! People there a really doing business and considering this I think it is great that we can get those 25 minutes to be there  🙂

All of us are sitting on the floor patiently and nobody complains about waiting. Then one Japanese man comes in and he begins talking about the fish market in a very interesting way. No wonder – he is a real insider, a wholesaler, who himself has been doing business here for many years. I am stunned to hear all those interesting things about tuna fish, fishing, wholesalers, restaurant owners and tuna auction. We devote all our attention to him, as his “lecture” is done also with humour and grace.

We learn that  appr. 1000 tunas are auctioned  here daily. Some of them are fresh tunas and some of them are frozen, depending on the place they were caught. If a fishing vessel is further away on the sea for a longer time the catch cannot be brought to the port immediately and it has to be frozen.

The most expensive fish ever sold  here at Tsukiji Fish Market was a 222 kilo bluefin tuna which fetched 155.4 million japanese yens = 1.8 million US dollars in the auction.  This means that it cost 8,000 USD per kilo = more or less 8 times more expensive than silver.  It was on Saturday, January 5th, 2013 in the morning and in the evening it was already offered to the guests in the sushi restaurant by which it was bought.  Up to 80% of the world´s tuna stock is being consumed by the Japanese.  

The tail part of each tuna is cut and placed on top of the tuna for buyers to be able to judge the meat quality 
Before the actual auction starts, the tuna fish are exhibited in neat rows and the buyers are able to make their assessment before bidding 
Notice the fish hook in the hand of the man on the right – buyers use it to examine the tuna as well as they use their touch, as we see the buyer to the left doing. It helps them to determine the meat quality 
Buyers are examining the tuna carefully and to get a more precise look they use a flash light. Based upon their expert appraisal they evaluate the quality and determine the price they are willing to pay in the auction
The bell rings and it is a signal for the auctioneer to call the auction using auction chant and the speed of it spices my early morning visit in this fish market auction hall even more 
Labelled purchased tuna fish 
Purchased fish is labelled and hauled onto a trolley to be whisked away and taken for further processing 

The dark fish behind the two lighter coloured tunas is a blue marlin – Pacific blue marlin = Makaira nigricans. Similar fish, Atlantic blue marlin,  which however was a bit bigger, was caught by Santiago in the famous short novel  by  Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
Fish packaging before transportation 

It is still dark and the sun has only started to rise when we leave the auction hall. We can see the trucks waiting for the fish to be transported away