Primetime Seafood President and Owner Rex Ito, a more than 30-year veteran of the bluefin tuna industry, has been a part of its shift from constantly changing supplies and quality to providing a consistent product year round.
Ito told SeafoodSource at Seafood Expo North America, which ran from 15 to 18 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., that he began his career selling wild caught tuna, and now works in ranched tuna produced by Bluefina, of which he is the exclusive distributor. Ito said through its long-term partnership with Mexico’s Baja Aqua Farms – where Bluefina is produced – Primetime Seafood now supplies 60 to 70 percent of the North American market for sushi and sashimi-quality bluefin.
Ito said the shift to ranching was in response to a number of commercial and environmental pressures.
Years ago, when he first envisioned capturing the U.S. market, he knew that he needed “sashimi quality meat, but also toro, the fat content.” The catch, he told his partners at Baja Aqua Farms, was that he needed that product “52 weeks a year.”
Before ranching most bluefin suppliers worked on a shorter-term timeline that produced an inconsistent product which was only intermittently available.
Most producers captured fish, fed them as quickly as possible, and then started selling them as soon as they had reached an “acceptable fat content” for the sushi/sashimi market. This meant that tuna quality and fat content varied with the season.
“The [tuna would be] lean in those beginning months. And then [the suppliers would] have good fish for about six months, and then they might even sell out and have no fish,” Ito said. “The market really couldn’t develop, because there would be quality issues – good fish, and then no fish.”
In response, Ito and Baja Aqua Farms devised a longer-term approach to ranching that would yield consistently excellent fish with both lean and fatty meat year-round.
Instead of selling their tuna as soon as it reaches an acceptable fat content for the sushi/sashimi market, Baja raises it for a year, during which time it doubles in size. This means that even the leanest cuts of Bluefina have a much higher fat content than other comparable products.
“Basically, we’ve built the Wagyu of tuna,” said Ito.
Ito emphasized that his career had shown him that the bluefin market follows quality.
“That’s basically it. Quality, consistency. Once you do that, you’ll get the price.”
Ito said Bluefina is also more efficient. Compared to wild-caught bluefin, Ito said, Bluefina has a better yield per fish …
