(Bloomberg) -- A bluefin tuna weighing a staggering 276 kilograms (608 pounds) was sold for 193.2 million yen ($1.8 million) on Sunday at a Tokyo fish market, the second-highest price on record.
Kiyomura Corp., which runs the Sushizanmai restaurant chain across Japan, made the winning bid for the second year in a row. It paid a record 333.6 million yen for a 278-kilogram bluefin tuna at last year's auction.
Kiyoshi Kimura, the owner of the chain, told Japan's public broadcaster NHK that even though the fish was “expensive,” he was keen to make the winning bid so he could serve the best tuna to his customers.
The fish, which weighs about the same as a large vending machine, was caught off Oma in northern Japan. Its sale kicked off 2020 at the Toyosu fish market close to Tokyo Bay.
To contact the reporter on this story: Go Onomitsu in Tokyo at gonomitsu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Yusuke Miyazawa at ymiyazawa3@bloomberg.net, Virginia Van Natta, Linus Chua
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