Tuna

Three Thousand Years of Nets: How Tuna Went From Roman Garum to a $3 Million Fish

Long before anyone called it sashimi, tuna was Mediterranean infrastructure. The Phoenicians built fish-processing stations along the Strait of Gibraltar and refined the almadraba — a labyrinth of nets set in the open sea to intercept bluefin tuna on their spring migration from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean to spawn. The technique, later expanded by the Romans and refined again by the Moors, funneled fish into a final holding chamber called the copo and has been fished continuously off Spain’s Cádiz coast for roughly 3,000 years — the same núcleo of towns (Barbate, Zahara de los Atunes, Conil de la Frontera) still run it today. Rome turned the catch into an empire-wide commodity: salted tuna and garum, a fermented fish sauce made partly from tuna offal, shipped from Iberian cetariae (salting factories) to tables across the empire.

The twentieth century turned tuna from a regional delicacy into an industrial supply chain — and exposed its costs. Purse-seine vessels in the Eastern Tropical Pacific discovered that yellowfin tuna often school beneath dolphin pods, so fleets began encircling the dolphins to catch the fish beneath them; between the 1950s and the 1980s this practice killed more than seven million dolphins. A 1987 undercover video by biologist Sam LaBudde aired nationally in 1988, triggered a consumer boycott, and led to the U.S. “Dolphin Safe” label in 1990 — today used on more than 95% of the world’s canned tuna supply. A second reckoning followed for bluefin specifically: the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) set its first bluefin quota in 1998, but actual catches ran an estimated 50,000+ tonnes a year against a 30,000–33,000-tonne limit through the 2000s, driving eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin to the edge of collapse by 2006. ICCAT’s 15-year recovery plan cut the quota from 36,000 tonnes in 2006 to under 13,000 tonnes by 2011 — a nearly two-thirds reduction that reshaped the entire premium tuna trade.

Two very different responses to bluefin’s scarcity followed. In Japan, after 32 years of research, Kindai University achieved the world’s first full-cycle farming of Pacific bluefin tuna in 2002 — hatching, raising, and breeding the fish entirely in captivity rather than fattening wild-caught juveniles, and now supplying roughly 80 tonnes a year. In Tokyo, scarcity turned auctions into spectacle: a 278kg bluefin sold for a record ¥333.6 million (about $3.1 million) at the first Toyosu market auction of 2019, bought by Sushi Zanmai owner Kiyoshi Kimura — more than double the previous record and a reminder that for the top grade of one species, price is set less by cost of production than by scarcity theater.

In the Professional Kitchen

Tuna reaches professional kitchens in more forms than almost any other fish: fresh whole loins and steaks, frozen sashimi-grade “saku” blocks (pre-trimmed rectangular loins sold specifically for raw preparations), canned and pouched product in brine, oil, or water, smoked and hot-smoked fillets, and cured, air-dried tuna — mojama, a Spanish specialty pressed and salt-cured like a fish version of bresaola. Fresh and frozen loin defines raw and seared preparations: sashimi, nigiri, poke, tuna tartare, and tataki (briefly seared, still raw inside). Thicker steaks go to the grill or pan for a dish built around a warm, seared crust and a rare-to-medium-rare center — overcooking dries tuna out fast, since the flesh has little internal fat outside the belly. Canned and pouched tuna anchors an entirely different register: niçoise salad, tuna melts, sandwiches, and casseroles, where texture is secondary to convenience and shelf stability.

The term “sushi-grade” carries no legal or regulatory definition in the US or EU — it’s a supplier’s marketing claim, not a certified standard. What actually governs raw-fish safety is the FDA Food Code’s parasite-destruction requirement, which mandates freezing fish intended for raw consumption at specified time/temperature combinations to kill parasites — with an explicit exemption for tuna species (bluefin, bigeye, yellowfin) because their biology makes them naturally low-risk. That exemption is exactly why fresh, never-frozen tuna loin can legitimately go straight to the sashimi board while most other raw-fish species must first pass through a freezer cycle. Kitchens serving raw tuna should still source from suppliers who can document species, catch method, and cold-chain handling, since the FDA guidance is a floor, not a substitute for supplier vetting.

Varieties & Forms

Five species dominate commercial supply, and they are not interchangeable. Bluefin (Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern) commands the highest prices and the highest fat content, especially in the toro cuts (fatty belly: otoro the fattiest, chutoro medium) prized in Japanese sashimi — reserve it for premium raw preparations where the price is justified on the menu. Bigeye runs a close second in fat and richness and is a common, somewhat more affordable substitute for bluefin sashimi. Yellowfin (often labeled “ahi”) is leaner, milder, and far more price-stable — the workhorse choice for seared steaks, poke bowls, and tartare where bluefin’s price premium isn’t warranted. Albacore, marketed in the US as “white meat tuna,” has the mildest flavor and lightest color of the major species and is the standard for premium canned/pouched product and light poke applications. Skipjack, the smallest and most abundant of the five, supplies over 70% of the US canned tuna market (labeled “chunk light”) and, dried and shaved, is also the base of Japanese katsuobushi (bonito flakes) — it has a stronger, more assertive flavor than albacore and is not typically served raw.

On processed forms: use fresh loin where the kitchen can turn it same-day and the dish depends on visible texture and color. Use frozen saku blocks for sashimi and sushi programs that need portion consistency and inventory flexibility without daily fresh deliveries. Use canned/pouched skipjack or albacore for salads, sandwiches, and back-of-house applications where cost and shelf stability matter more than raw texture. Smoked tuna works as a charcuterie-board or salad component with a longer refrigerated shelf life than fresh. Be aware that most “farmed bluefin” on the market is not full-cycle farmed like Kindai’s fish — it’s wild-caught juveniles caught and fattened for months in Mediterranean sea pens, a different (and still wild-catch-dependent) supply chain worth asking your supplier about.

Why It Matters for Your Food Cost

Tuna pricing runs on two very different tracks depending on species. Bluefin sits at the volatile, headline-grabbing end — ICCAT’s quota cuts from 36,000 to under 13,000 tonnes between 2006 and 2011 removed nearly two-thirds of legal Atlantic/Mediterranean supply in five years, and top-grade fish at auction can swing by orders of magnitude based on size, fat content, and buyer competition, as the $3.1 million Tokyo sale illustrates at the extreme. Canned tuna, the other end of the market, has its own documented risk: StarKist, Bumble Bee, and Chicken of the Sea/Tri-Union together control roughly 73% of the US canned tuna market, and a Department of Justice antitrust case found StarKist and Bumble Bee had colluded to fix prices between 2011 and 2015 — resulting in criminal convictions, a former Bumble Bee CEO sentenced to prison, and over $216 million in civil settlements. That’s a three-supplier market for a product line most kitchens treat as a commodity. On top of pricing, sourcing risk is real: DNA testing by Oceana found 59% of tuna samples nationwide were mislabeled, and 84% of restaurant “white tuna” was actually escolar, a fish the FDA warns against selling because it can cause digestive symptoms in some diners — a traceability gap, not just a cost one.

Yellowfin, albacore, and skipjack are the practical substitutes for bluefin and bigeye where cost or availability makes premium species impractical — each trades some richness and fat content for a lower, steadier price. Fish is one of the 14 major allergens the EU requires food businesses to declare (Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011), governed by the protein parvalbumin — a separate allergen category from crustacean and mollusc shellfish, which use a different protein (tropomyosin), so a “no shellfish” claim does not cover tuna. Mercury content also varies sharply by species and matters for portion-frequency guidance to guests: FDA data puts bigeye tuna’s mean mercury level at roughly 0.69 ppm (its highest-risk “avoid” category) against about 0.35 ppm for albacore and 0.13 ppm for canned light/skipjack. Fresh tuna is highly perishable and depends on an unbroken cold chain from boat to plate; frozen saku blocks extend usable shelf life substantially but must be tracked by thaw date, not just delivery date, to avoid serving fish past safe holding time.

How CalcMenu Helps

• Recipe costing reflects live supplier pricing so a bluefin sashimi special or a canned-tuna salad line shows this week’s real cost, not a stale number from a calmer pricing period.
• Substitution costing lets you model yellowfin or albacore against bluefin or bigeye side by side, showing the real cost and richness tradeoff before a quota cut or auction spike forces the decision.
• Allergen tracking flags fish (parvalbumin) separately from crustacean and mollusc shellfish on every recipe spec, so a “shellfish-free” claim isn’t wrongly applied to a tuna dish.
• Multi-site price consistency surfaces when one location is paying materially more for the same species and grade — useful leverage in a canned-tuna market where three suppliers set most list prices.

Sources

• Almadraba: 3000 years of traditional tuna fishing — Atlantic Culturescape
• Bluefin tuna and Cádiz: A pinch of history and gastronomy — ScienceDirect
• Dolphin safe label — Wikipedia
• The Origin Of The “Dolphin-Safe” Tuna Label — Forbes, April 2021
• Recent history of Atlantic bluefin tuna — Marine Stewardship Council
• Completely farm-raised bluefin tuna — Aquaculture Research Institute, Kindai University
• Can this university save bluefin tuna from extinction? — CNN Money, November 2016
• Bluefin tuna sells for record $3M at Tokyo auction — CBS News, January 2019
• Bluefin goes for $3 million at 1st 2019 sale at Tokyo market — NBC News, January 2019
• Judge grants $216 million settlement in yearslong canned tuna antitrust suit — Courthouse News Service
• US court approves StarKist, Bumble Bee price-fixing settlements — SeafoodSource
• Oceana Study Uncovers Widespread Seafood Fraud Nationwide — Oceana
• More than Half of Our ‘Tuna’ Isn’t Really Tuna — Smithsonian Magazine
• There Is No Such Thing As “Sushi-Grade” (Nor “Sashimi-Grade”) — Meat N’ Bone
• Advice About Eating Fish — U.S. Food and Drug Administration, October 2021
• Mercury in Tuna: Is This Fish Safe to Eat? — Healthline
• List of the 14 most common food allergens — EUFIC
• Thermostable allergens in canned fish: Evaluating risks for fish allergy — Taki et al., Allergy, 2023