At Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market on 29 May, fresh domestic bluefin tuna sold at an average price of JPY 1,980 (USD 20, EUR 15) for Niigata Prefecture product, a couple notches down from the same period last year.
Annually near the start of summer bluefin tuna migrate north along the Japanese archipelago, with the majority on the Sea of Japan side. This year, after a couple of years of reduced fishing effort on the Pacific Ocean side of the Sanriku coast (Honshu Island) following the earthquake and tsunami, catches have improved there markedly.
As the spring Golden Week holidays have already passed, demand is weak just as the increased supply from seine netters hits the market, pushing prices down to the same levels as farmed fish.
Kinki University has opened a restaurant with the long name of “Graduating from Kinki University Fisheries Research” in Grand Front Osaka, a fashionable new entertainment complex. It is offering a seafood-and-rice bowl using its farmed bluefin tuna, kindai. Customers can learn about the university’s closed-cycle breeding and enter comments using tablet computers fixed at each counter space and table. The restaurant also has cutting exhibitions.
The share of farmed bluefin (both imported and domestic) out of total bluefin sold in Japan has increased to nearly 70 percent. About half of all fresh bluefin tuna on the market now comes from Mexico, supplanting Spanish product in the market.
Farmed Mexican bluefin tuna was previously sold at a discount to other origins. Supermarkets in the Tokyo area sold Spanish farmed bluefin sashimi fillets last year at JPY 1,280 (USD 12.94, EUR 9.75) for 100 grams, the same as domestically farmed product, while Mexican product was sold at JPY 980 (USD 9.91, EUR 7.46).
However, it has recently found favor in supermarkets and conveyer-belt sushi shops, as the quality has proven satisfactory and prices have become more reasonable. Performances of cutting up a whole tuna are also popular attractions in such sushi shops.
Mexican farmed tuna is mainly produced in Baja California, such as the “Baja Blue” brand produced by Baja Aquafarms in Ensenada and distributed by Altex Asia.
Wholesale prices for fresh farmed Mexican bluefin at Tsukiji have risen 2 to 3 percent over the last two months, and are now at around JPY 2,300 (USD 23.25, EUR 17.51) per kilogram (kg). The supply at Tsukiji from January to April of 2013 increased six-fold compared to the same period last year, to nearly 7,000 kg.
Mexican farmed tuna is air freighted to Tsukiji from September to May. In the northern summer, farmed production from Japan and Mexico is reduced, and buyers switch to Southern bluefin tuna farmed at Port Lincoln, Australia. Southern bluefin currently averages JPY 2,802 (USD 28.30, EUR 21.33) fresh and JPY 1,995 (USD 20.15, EUR 15.18) frozen.
Fresh bigeye sold at an average of JPY 1,185 (USD 11.97, EUR 9.02) for domestic and JPY 1,050 (USD 10.60, EUR 7.99) for imported, and frozen sold at an average of 791 per kg. Bigeye has largely replaced bluefin at medium to low-end supermarkets with sales volumes on the order of ten times that for bluefin.
