🐟 Bluefin, Yellowfin & Bigeye: What’s the Difference?

One of the questions I hear most at the farmers market is, what's the difference between

bluefin, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna? My quick thirty-second version usually goes something like: bigeye is a treat with its super rich fatty oils, bluefin is famous and most common on menus, and yellowfin is leaner and used in most poke bowls. But the longer version is actually more interesting.

Let's start with bluefin. It's rich, beautiful on the grill, prized in sushi, and thanks to Wicked Tuna pretty famous around here. It's also been under real pressure globally from industrial fishing for decades. Here in the US though, it's a tightly managed fishery with strict quotas and a one-fish-at-a-time model. To move toward a more sustainable fishery we feel that eating in moderation coupled with supporting small-scale community based fishing (like us) is a good start.

Yellowfin, the tuna many folks know as ahi, is the fish you see in poke. They run in warm waters near the Gulf stream and the canyons where we fish offshore during the summer months. Yellowfin are in good shape from a management standpoint. NOAA says Atlantic yellowfin is not overfished or undergoing overfishing. and it's one we're excited to make more locally accessible.

There’s another interesting piece to the yellowfin story: where your tuna comes from matters. Much of the yellowfin we see in restaurants and seafood markets has traveled a long way to get here, often coming from Pacific fisheries where larger industrial fleets can harvest tuna at a much greater volume and sell it at lower price points.

Our yellowfin takes a very different route and that's something we think is worth celebrating. It’s caught by our local fishermen offshore of Cape Cod, landed in relatively small quantities, and moves through our own short supply chain—from the boat, to our co-op, to you. That allows us to put an incredible amount of care into the fish from the moment it’s caught. The result is exceptionally high-quality yellowfin with far fewer miles between the ocean and your plate.

Bigeye is the rare treat. They range up this way but spend much of their time in deeper water, which makes encounters and targeting different. For us, landing one is special. Bigeye is buttery and rich, the filet mignon vibe. And to be clear, it's also currently classified as overfished but not subject to overfishing. That means that the stock is low but we're on a successful path toward rebuilding. Which reinforces the idea of moderation.

Questions around mercury also tend to some up in these conversations. We love how thoughtful our members are as well as our Farmers Market shoppers. We suggest everyone follow FDA guidance and personal health advice. There will be different considerations depending on the tuna and where it is caught.

This is all a big part of what we love about our Fish Share program and the Farmers Markets: its the opportunity to go beyond the transactional questions like: do you have tuna? And move toward the more interesting questions like: Which tuna is it? And what's its story?