The Perilous Economics of a Piece of Tuna

On a shopping strip along Nebraska's Highway 64, between a tattoo parlor and a cannabis dispensary, sits Yoshitomo—a sushi restaurant that serves fish caught off the coast of Japan only days earlier. "The fact that we can enjoy a fresh piece of fish in Omaha, Nebraska a few days after it's caught off the coast of Japan is a marvel of modern technology and logistics," says David Utterbach, who runs the restaurant. But the journey from ocean to plate involves a far trickier economic puzzle than most diners realize. As Zachary Crockett explains in this episode of The Economics of Everyday Things, there is "no commodity on earth that can lose as much value as quickly as a piece of high quality tuna destined for the sushi market."

From Street Food to "Diamond of the Sea"

Sushi as we know it—a piece of raw fish pressed into vinegared rice, called nigiri—first emerged as street food in 19th-century Japan. Sasha Issenberg, author of The Sushi Economy, describes its original status: "The closest analog that we probably have in American society would be a street corner hot dog." It was cheap, working-class food eaten on the go.