The Honolulu Fish Auction

by Jon Keller

Every fish sold here at United’s auction house is cut so buyers can examine the product before and during the bidding. They look at color and texture when testing the fish. Photo: Jon Keller

Early morning in Honolulu and it’s nearly 70 degrees as longliners unload their catches, just outside the new United Fishing Agency building. It’s still dark and will be for hours as the longliners work in the glow of floodlights. The crews, many of whom are contract laborers out of the Philippines, unload the catches of tuna, billfish and bottomfish from the holds.

Every boat in Hawaii’s longliner fleet, which numbers over 100, sells their fish here at the United Fishing Agency. The Agency dates back to 1952 and continues to operate in a traditional Japanese manner: employees help the crews unload their catches, each fish is inspected before hitting the auction floor, and poor quality fish are refused. The fish are labeled with color-coded tags specific to each vessel, which allows each boat to get paid according to the quality and value of their catch. The tags also tell buyers the weight of each fish.

As the thousands of pounds of tuna and swords are lined up on pallets covering the chilled auction floor, a single Agency employee makes his rounds, slicing into the tail of each fish and gently laying the cross sections atop the fish.

Brooks Takenaka, United’s manager, stoops over two bigeye tuna and points to the cutout wedges. One is bright red, the other a touch paler. He spreads the gills and stuffs a hand inside the fish. “They’re both fresh fish,” he says. “Both cold inside. But the color. That’s a two to three dollar per pound difference.”

The auction starts at 5:30 a.m. sharp, six days a week. A board on the wall tells the buyers the estimated catches of each species from each boat–by name–so they have an idea of what to expect as the boats are unloaded. A single auctioneer with a pad of paper stands above each fish, and around him huddle an intimate group of seafood buyers (wholesalers, retailers and restaurant brokers). The auction is open to the public, but as Takenaka says, pointing to the group, it’s a hard group to deal with. They have a language and system all their own, throwing numbers and flipping papers and smelling the sections of each fish for quality. Having to deal with tons and tons of fish each day, the process is fast and clean and cold. To an outsider, it appears simply chaotic.

As the individual fish sells, the buyer puts his tag on the fish and the group moves to the next. Takenaka’s employees follow in white jackets, jotting down weights and prices and setting the slips on the sold fish, the copies going to the office.

This traditional method of selling fish is becoming increasingly rare. Few large-scale markets in the world still operate this way; in the United States, only New York’s Fulton St. Market and Portland Maine’s market allow inspection before purchase. To Takenaka, it is the only way to sell fish. The United Fishing Agency is 28th in the nation in volume sold (18-20 million lbs. per year), but ranks 8th in total value sold: these fish are top quality and demand top dollar.

Fish buyers, mostly brokers, wholesalers, and retailers, cluster around the auctioneer on the United Fishing Agency’s auction floor in Honolulu Harbor. They bid on each bigeye tuna individually, testing color and texture as the group moves up and down each row. Photo: Jon Keller

The system works well, not only for the buyers—of whom over 65% are feeding a strong local market (per capita, Hawaii is 2nd only to Japan in its sushi consumption)—but it works in the fishermen’s favor as well. “It’s the best way to sell your fish,” says Takenaka. “The fishermen are rewarded if they value and appreciate the fish. The system rewards them for their diligence and experience. It’s a motivational factor and the quality speaks for itself.” Not only do the fishermen get top dollar, but also they are written checks daily. United Fishing takes 10% of each sale.
Either U.S. mainland buyers or foreign buyers, mostly from Japan, buy the 25-35% of the fish that is not consumed locally. “It’s a global reality,” says Takenaka, adding that the fish brought into his auction house represent only 2% of the total Pacific catch. None of the fish at the auction are trawled; nearly all are longlined, and some trollers and hand-liners sell their catches here as well. This virtually negates bycatch issues, says Takenaka, because anything that would be considered bycatch is a commercially “appreciated” species and therefore sold at the auction.

Although the prime species at the auction is bigeye tuna, a lot of other fish come in. After the bigeye is sold, they move to skipjack tuna, albacore tuna and yellowfin tuna. Then the billfish: broadbill swordfish, shortbill spearfish and striped marlin; and the other open ocean fish like dolphinfish, wahoo, moonfish and bigscale pomfret. Some bottom fishermen, too, sell grouper, red snapper, crimson snapper, russet jobfish, yellowbar jobfish, yellowstriped snapper and lavender jobfish at the auction.

Outside, while the auction is going on, the captain of one boat watches as his 10 tons of bigeye tuna are offloaded–and sold nearly as fast they can reach the floor. The 100-foot vessel usually makes three-week voyages, going from 400 to 800 miles offshore. This trip, however, was cut short and his catch wasn’t what it could have been. But he says even his best catches are nothing next to the Japanese and European longliners, who have superior technology. “We’re just fishermen,” he says. “And right now this is one of our last open fisheries since Alaska went to ITQs. That doesn’t even seem legal,” he adds. With the cost of fuel and bait (he paid 22 dollars a case for frozen sardines), he says they’re not making much money, but the catch has been constant, so far.

The captain eyes each fish carefully as he speaks, and when he notices a blemish he stops the crew and checks it out before he allows them to continue. When a slightly off-color wahoo comes out of the hold, he rushes to it and glares at one of the crew. “What the hell happened to this fish?” he asks, knowing it will not meet the auction’s strict standards. The sweating Filipino turns the fish as it hangs, and points to a hole in it’s back. He mumbles something and the captain steps closer. “Got bit,” the man says, pushing his finger into the hole.

The captain steps away and watches as the auction employee sets the fish to the side of the load. In most other markets in the world, the fish would have passed through and ended up on someone’s plate, but here at the United Fishing Agency’s auction, quality, as Takenaka says, speaks for itself.