The tuna's top-notch and plentiful
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor
Sashimi lovers, the news is good. From the wholesale fish auction to the distribution houses to the retail stores, fish sellers are predicting abundant fish and steady prices for the New Year's fish-buying frenzy.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
"The boats are catching well and they've scheduled themselves well, so the majority of boats are coming in this week," said Tom Kraft, president of TJ Kraft/Norpac, a fish distributor and processing house that supplies Costco and Times stores with cut sashimi, as well as poke.
Prices for tuna, such as these ahi loins ready for slicing into sashimi, aren't expected to spike despite the heavy New Year's demand.
The United Fishing Agency auction, celebrating its first holiday season in its new home in the state's commercial fishing village at Pier 38, had a whopping 100,000-plus-pound day yesterday, according to auction manager Brooks Takenaka. A normal day is in the 60,000- to 80,000-pound range. Takenaka expects another 100,000-pound day today. "Right now, it's looking good. There are a bunch of boats due in so we should keep getting fish all through the week," he said with cautious optimism.
In Hawai'i, where the Japanese influence has made New Year's parties at least as big a deal as Christmas, with Japanese-style sashimi and sushi and Hawaiian-style poke a must on buffet tables, tuna supply and price are always big news at this time of year.
Some years, prices spike drastically, topping out in dizzy double figures on New Year's Eve. But not this year, predicts Bob Fram of Garden and Valley Isle Seafood, a wholesale supplier that opens a seasonal retail store in December at its Nimitz Highway headquarters. He said it has been an exceptionally good fishing season, a mild El Ni–o year in which fish have been plentiful and longliners haven't had to venture as far from home as in some years, which means fresher fish and larger loads. It's also a good season for striped marlin and mahimahi, he said.
"I would say (tuna) prices are going to be lower than usual if you took an average of the holiday prices for the past few years," Fram said.
The Garden and Valley Isle shop has sashimi-grade 'ahi at a little over $15 a pound. "Normally, at New Year's that grade would be $18.95 but I don't think it's going to go up much," Fram said.
At the auction, Takenaka said, most of the fish sold for between $5 and $7 a pound, with smaller fish as low as $2 a pound. You can expect to pay twice or three times that at retail, depending on the seller and the quality of the fish.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
As always, the very highest grade sashimi tuna — what Fram called "Tokyo sashimi," with its high fat content, buttery texture and characteristic dull crimson flesh — will spark bidding wars, command astronomical prices and find its way only to a few, select fish shops and restaurants.
Wendell Bukida, an employee of the Seafood Garden fish shop on Nimitz Highway, shows off a 30-pound ahi.
Guy Tamashiro, a second-generation fish buyer for Tamashiro Market, said yesterday he's working to find a supply of prized bluefin tuna but hasn't found any he thinks is worth the price. He expects the highest grades of tuna to sell for $30 a pound or more because of its scarcity. Yesterday, he said, "we went through over 100,000 pounds of fish (at the auction) and there was only one that had a lot of fat and it went for $11.50 (a pound, wholesale). Those fish are very rare."
But the vast majority of sashimi will come from bigeye tuna, Thunnus obesus, and, assuming supply remains good, are expected to sell for between $10 and $20 a pound retail. The higher the fat content, the brighter the red color, the higher the price (though connoisseurs know color isn't a true predictor of quality; the fat-rich, sought-after toro belly meat is faded pink, not bright red). You also pay more as tuna goes from whole to loin to blocks to pre-sliced.
Stores expect the biggest sales on New Year's Eve itself, but since there are many gatherings between now and then, and well-handled bigeye has a three-day shelf life, suppliers are frantically busy now.
"All year long, we live in fear of this week," said Kraft with a chuckle. "You can't cut enough sashimi at this time of year if you work 24 hours solid — which we do."
One tip: Buy your tuna before year's end. The day after New Year's Day, supplies plummet and prices soar, remaining high until mid- to late January. The reason is that, having worked nonstop in late December to make the big paychecks at Christmas and New Year's, Fram said, fishermen both locally and in South America and New Zealand tend to take some time off during the early weeks of the year.
