Prime Time Seafood President and Owner Rex Ito wants Bluefina's ranched bluefin tuna to be seen as the "Wagyu" of the tuna world.
Ito is a more than 30-year veteran of the bluefin tuna industry, and has been a part of a shift in how the species is brought to market. He told SeafoodSource at Seafood Expo North America, which ran from 16 to 18 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., at the start of his career he was mainly selling wild caught tuna, and he now works in ranched tuna produced by Bluefina – of which Prime Time Seafood is the sales and logistics arm.
Ito said through its long-term partnership with Mexico’s Baja Aqua Farms – where Bluefina is produced – Prime Time Seafood now manages sales and logistics for 60 to 70 percent of the North American market for sushi and sashimi-quality bluefin.
According to Ito, the shift from wild caught bluefin to ranching was in response to a number of commercial and environmental pressures – and is also part of how the company has developed its high-quality products.
Years ago, when he first envisioned capturing the U.S. market, Ito 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, about 75 percent of the whole animal.
“They’re so fat, it’s a rounder fish, so the yield is better,” he said.
While ranching has helped create a consistent supply of bluefin tuna, there are still persistent misconceptions in the public about how the fishery works, Ito said. “There has been misinformation about the overfishing of bluefin that just drives me nuts.”
Bluefin was considered overfished in the early 2000s, but conservation efforts and limited catch quotas have been extremely successful in rebounding the stock. Giving the fishery a break for “four of five generations” of tuna lifespan has produced, Ito said, a remarkable success story.
“In both the Atlantic and the Pacific, bluefin populations are better than we have seen in 50 years,” he said.
In 2024, NOAA reported that conservation efforts for tuna had succeeded much faster than expected, and Ito said he was hopeful that the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch would remove their red-rating on the species soon. The program did lift Pacific bluefin to a “yellow” rating in 2024, the first time it was above red in 25 years.
Ito said the stock improvements are encouraging enough that Bluefina’s catch quotas have gone up by 50 percent.
“That’s a huge amount, and it’s just a reflection of what the fishery is doing,” he said.
The higher quota is providing the company with an opportunity to strengthen its reach in the North American market.
“We actually have an excess of fish that we want to expose to the market and grow the market. We’ve pretty much captured a great portion of sushi bar/ Japanese restaurant businesses, and our expansion now is into white tablecloth,” Ito said.
Ito said the company is targeting high-end establishments and places like steakhouses, which are a fit for the Bluefina brand.
“We have the Wagyu of tuna,” said Ito. “Let’s offer that [at steakhouses]. A Wagyu steak and a Wagyu tuna.”
Ito said his expansion strategy is simple, since Bluefina “has the wow factor.” All he has to do is get Bluefina into the hands of target restaurants’ suppliers, like Fortune Fish or Santa Monica Seafood, and then let chefs taste it.
“We just have to get it in people’s mouths,” said Ito.
