Million Dollar Tuna

http://gcaptain.com/single-bluefin-tuna-fetches-1-76/

1.76 million for a tuna, I guess it's time to break out the fishing rod.

johndough wrote:http://gcaptain.com/single-bluefin-tuna-fetches-1-76/

1.76 million for a tuna, I guess it's time to break out the fishing rod.

Damn!!

This should be the rediculous amounts of money rich people will pay for rediculous items thread.

because im not paying more than $18 a lb for anything.

Thats why I stick with mullet and swai (basa)

johndough wrote:http://gcaptain.com/single-bluefin-tuna-fetches-1-76/

1.76 million for a tuna, I guess it's time to break out the fishing rod.

I had seen ticklers for the article elsewhere but hadn't taken the time to read through.

Apparently the winning bidder will lose $1.55 million on the tuna once it is all sold as Sushi.

It is the first tuna sold of the season at this fish market that covers an are the size of 43 football fields. Whew.

Who decides on which tuna will be put up for auction first? There must be some sort of grading system. When you order the Sushi at a restaurant, do you get a certificate that you ate part of a million dollar tuna?

Do you pay the same if you order Sushi and get the tuna from the second or third tuna sold?

These are critical questions, the public wants to know!

Markle wrote:

johndough wrote:http://gcaptain.com/single-bluefin-tuna-fetches-1-76/

1.76 million for a tuna, I guess it's time to break out the fishing rod.

I had seen ticklers for the article elsewhere but hadn't taken the time to read through.

Apparently the winning bidder will lose $1.55 million on the tuna once it is all sold as Sushi.

It is the first tuna sold of the season at this fish market that covers an are the size of 43 football fields. Whew.

Who decides on which tuna will be put up for auction first? There must be some sort of grading system. When you order the Sushi at a restaurant, do you get a certificate that you ate part of a million dollar tuna?

Do you pay the same if you order Sushi and get the tuna from the second or third tuna sold?

These are critical questions, the public wants to know!

Aw, Markle. You can afford it. You're one of the fat cats, right?

You and Ghandi can host the "Sushi Bowl" and feed all of us... cept'n, I don't eat raw fish.

It had to be a Japanese.

Markle wrote:

johndough wrote:http://gcaptain.com/single-bluefin-tuna-fetches-1-76/

1.76 million for a tuna, I guess it's time to break out the fishing rod.

I had seen ticklers for the article elsewhere but hadn't taken the time to read through.

Apparently the winning bidder will lose $1.55 million on the tuna once it is all sold as Sushi.

It is the first tuna sold of the season at this fish market that covers an are the size of 43 football fields. Whew.

Who decides on which tuna will be put up for auction first? There must be some sort of grading system. When you order the Sushi at a restaurant, do you get a certificate that you ate part of a million dollar tuna?

Do you pay the same if you order Sushi and get the tuna from the second or third tuna sold?

These are critical questions, the public wants to know!

Tsukiji fish market is very complex place with a age old system of grading and buying fish. Fish is more than just "fish" to the Japanese.
The market is located near the Tsukijishijō Station on the Toei Ōedo Line and Tsukiji Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line. There are two distinct sections of the market as a whole. The "inner market" (jōnai-shijō) is the licensed wholesale market, where the auctions and most of the processing of the fish take place, and where licensed wholesale dealers (approximately 900 of them) operate small stalls. The "outer market" (jōgai-shijō) is a mixture of wholesale and retail shops that sell Japanese kitchen tools, restaurant supplies, groceries, and seafood, and many restaurants, especially sushi restaurants. Most of the shops in the outer market close by the early afternoon, and in the inner market even earlier.

[edit]Economics

The market handles more than 400 different types of seafood from cheap seaweed to the most expensive caviar, and from tiny sardines to 300 kg tuna and controversial whale species.[2] Overall, more than 700,000 metric tons of seafood are handled every year at the three seafood markets in Tokyo, with a total value in excess of 600 billion yen (approximately 7-8 billion US dollars). The number of registered employees as of 25 January 2010 varies from 60,000 to 65,000, including wholesalers, accountants, auctioneers, company officials, and distributors.

[edit]Operations

The market opens most mornings (except Sundays, holidays and some Wednesdays) at 3:00 a.m. with the arrival of the products by ship, truck and plane from all over the world. Particularly impressive is the unloading of tons of frozen tuna. The auction houses (wholesalers known in Japanese as oroshi gyōsha) then estimate the value and prepare the incoming products for the auctions. The buyers (licensed to participate in the auctions) also inspect the fish to estimate which fish they would like to bid for and at which price.

The auctions start around 5:20 a.m. Bidding can only be done by licensed participants. These bidders include intermediate wholesalers (nakaoroshi gyōsha) who operate stalls in the marketplace and other licensed buyers who are agents for restaurants, food processing companies, and large retailers.

The auctions usually end around 7:00 a.m. Afterward, the purchased fish is either loaded onto trucks to be shipped to the next destination or on small carts and moved to the many shops inside the market. There the shop owners cut and prepare the products for retail. In case of large fish, for example tuna and swordfish, cutting and preparation is elaborate. Frozen tuna and swordfish are often cut with large band saws, and fresh tuna is carved with extremely long knives (some well over a meter in length) called oroshi-hōchō, maguro-bōchō, or hanchō-hōchō.


Vendors display the morning's catch at the market at 4 a.m.


End of the fresh tuna auction at Tsukiji


A tray of six Takifugu rubripes on ice for sale at Tsukiji


Tuna auction at Tsukiji
The market is the busiest between 5:30 and 8:00 a.m., and the activity declines significantly afterward. Many shops start to close around 11:00 a.m., and the market closes for cleaning around 1:00 p.m. Tourists may visit the market daily between 5 a.m. and 6:15 a.m. and watch the proceedings from a designated area,[3] except during periods when it is closed to the public.

Because of an increase in sightseers and the associated problems they cause, the market had banned all tourists from the tuna auctions on several occasions, including from 15 December 2008 through 17 January 2009,[4] 10 December 2009 through 23 January 2010,[5] and 8 April 2010 through 10 May 2010.[6] After the latest ban that ended in May 2010, the tuna auctions have been re-opened to the public with a maximum limit of 140 visitors per day on a first-come, first-serve basis.[7] Visitor entry into the interior wholesale markets is prohibited until after 9 AM.[8] Due to the March 2011 earthquakes all tourists were banned from viewing the tuna auctions till 26 July 2011, from which date it was reopened.[9]

Inspectors from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government supervise activities in the market to enforce the Food Hygiene Law.

They have MWR tours to the market from the bases in Japan. It's supposed to be VERY interesting to watch the auction, but you have to stay out of the way because fish are flying every which way. But we never had the desire to get up at 2:00 am to take a bus into Tokyo to watch people throwing very expensive fish around.

Yomama wrote:

Markle wrote:

johndough wrote:http://gcaptain.com/single-bluefin-tuna-fetches-1-76/

1.76 million for a tuna, I guess it's time to break out the fishing rod.

I had seen ticklers for the article elsewhere but hadn't taken the time to read through.

Apparently the winning bidder will lose $1.55 million on the tuna once it is all sold as Sushi.

It is the first tuna sold of the season at this fish market that covers an are the size of 43 football fields. Whew.

Who decides on which tuna will be put up for auction first? There must be some sort of grading system. When you order the Sushi at a restaurant, do you get a certificate that you ate part of a million dollar tuna?

Do you pay the same if you order Sushi and get the tuna from the second or third tuna sold?

These are critical questions, the public wants to know!

Aw, Markle. You can afford it. You're one of the fat cats, right?

You and Ghandi can host the "Sushi Bowl" and feed all of us... cept'n, I don't eat raw fish.

They can bake it for us. I'll even find some good recipes.

So Markle....when's the cookout? We'll all rent a bus and head on over your way.

hallmarkgrad wrote:Related story on a 600,000 dollar fish


Its price has little to do with the market for or plight of the threatened fish
By Corbin Hiar 5:25 pm, January 6, 2012 Updated: 11:05 am, January 19, 2012

Fishing nations approve overhaul of bluefin tuna tracking system
By Kate Willson and Marina Walker Guevara November 20, 2011
Nearly 50 countries that trade in high-priced Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna voted Saturday to transform an archaic paper-based system into an electronic fish-tracking database that will make it harder for fleets to smuggle plundered bluefin into market.
While the bluefin tuna is widely acknowledged to be a threatened fish, the price paid Thursday for one 593-pound catch is more a show of nationalism and marketing saavy than a sign of how endangered the tuna has become.

Bluefin tuna is a long-lived, highly migratory fish prized by sushi eaters for its red meaty flesh. The Eastern and Western Atlantic stocks of bluefin tuna have been so severely plundered that they were proposed for listing as an endangered species in 2009 – a designation strongly opposed by Japan, which consumes around 80 percent of the bluefin caught in the world. A recent investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that the black market trade in the Eastern Atlantic stock included nearly one in three fish caught.

It would stand to figure that the price paid by Kiyoshi Kimura, a Japanese restaurateur, would have been far higher had these black market fish not been driving down the price. But his big bid has more to do with national pride and salesmanship than the economics of scarcity.

Every year, the first auction of a Japanese-caught Pacific bluefin tuna attracts the attention of the sushi-loving nation. And for the past four years, the winning bidder has been from Hong Kong – a significant blow to the national psyche. The Chinese company, the Taste of Japan, set a record last year when it paid nearly $396,000 for a 754-pound tuna at the first fish auction of 2011.

The Chinese news service Xinghua in March put the average price of bluefin tuna in Japan around $10,000 for a single fish. That's a lot, even for a fish that can weight more than 1,000 pounds. But Kimura paid 70 times than that more for his New Year's delicacy: $1,238-per-pound.

Kimura, who is the president of a company that runs the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain, told AP he wanted to keep the fish in Japan, “rather than let it get taken overseas.” The Wall Street Journal reported that cuts of the record-breaking tuna will be sold at regular prices ranging from $1.75 for a piece of the “akami” red meat to $5.45 for a slab of “otoro,” or fatty tuna, draped over a nugget of pressed rice. If sold at cost, each piece could be sold for as much as $96.

“Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster,” Kimura added, referring to the tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster. “Japan needs to hang in there. So I tried hard myself and ended up buying the most expensive one.”

But the spectacle surrounding the first bluefin tuna auction of the season leaves a bad tase in conservationists' mouths. “We don't agree with the use of an overfished and endangered species as a promotional gimmick,” Allen To, a marine conservation officer at the World Wildlife Fund, told the South China Morning Post after last years' record-setting sale.

dang! Thats going to make one huge pot of fish head soup

Maybe if we stamp the tuna with a serial number it'll be worth a gazillion dollars too...

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAD6Obi7Cag