Kobe

My day in Kobe began with a visit to the Kobe Beef Distribution Promotion Association. The average Kobe feeder farm has 200 head of cattle. They buy the cattle from the breeders when they are around 280 kg and sell them when they are around 650 – 700 kg. This growth stage takes two years. There are two large cow-calf farms producing 10,000 head per year. In order to be designated as Kobe beef the cattle must be purebred Tajimaushi, with Tajima being the breed name and ushi meaning cattle. The Tajima breed is documented to have been in this area 1200 years ago and is native to Hyugo prefecture where Kobe is located. All Japanese cattle are registered and receive a ten digit identification number and their registration papers include a nose print. Tajima cattle produce meat that has very thin fibers and soft fat. Kobe beef can only be produced in Hyugo prefecture. All Japanese beef cattle have some Tajima blood but they are crossed with other native breeds. Tajima were first used as labor on the farms and there is evidence of livestock markets in the 1600’s. Feudal lords encouraged farmers to take good care of their cattle and all people had to bow to Tajimaushi except feudal lords and court nobleman. The cattle in this area also got better feed such as wheat and the byproducts of producing sake. In 1868 Kobe port opened to foreign ships and the foreigners wanted beef. After this Kobe beef became world renowned.

In 1979 the Kobe Beef Distribution Promotion Association was established. It's mission was to establish a clear definition of Kobe beef and make the product clearly identifiable. They registered the Kobe brand. There are 500 registered Kobe growers and of these 5 are located within the Kobe city limits (this is more like a county in the U.S.). There are 500,000 tons of beef consumed in Japan each year of that only 8,000 tons is Kobe beef. When BSE was found in Japan there were no cases in Kobe beef and only one case in Japanese beef the remaining cases were all in dairy cattle. 100% of the cattle are checked for BSE and if a positive is found it is burned and all of the cattle that were feed with it cannot be shipped. Also, all the Specified Risk Materials are vacuumed and burned. They also change knives between each cow they process. When the BSE outbreak happened in Japan the prices of most beef went down but Kobe already had complete traceability so their prices were not impacted. As I said above, each animal has a ten digit number that is on its ear tag and registration papers and can be traced to the cow it came from. The meat packages also have this number. Consumers can input this number on the internet through their mobile phones and access all of the information about the animal. There are also displays in some meat shops where this information can be accessed. The government pays for the traceability system and BSE testing. The producer incurs no costs except the labor involved with keeping the records.

Next we drove to Teishin Chikusan Meat Company. This is one of the largest beef processors in Japan. I met Mr. Sotoike Yoshimitsu the President of the company and we looked at some beef in their freezer. They pointed out the difference in the feel of the fat on Kobe beef as opposed to other Japanese beef. It is much softer, the other Japanese beef’s fat is very hard. The most popular cuts of beef change with the season in the summer BBQ is popular and the short rib is used and in the winter Shabu Shabu is popular which is the very thinly sliced meat usually cut from the loin or sirloin and cooked at the table.

Next we went to the Meat Center for a beef auction. They do not auction the live cattle they auction the carcasses after slaughter. The cattle are brought to the Meat Center and they are slaughtered and then tested for BSE. Two days later they are auctioned and 4 days after slaughter they are available to consumers and restaurants. They do not age their meat as we do in the U.S. I was told that not very many people ever get to watch an auction and especially not on a day when there is a lot of Kobe beef in the auction. I feel very honored to have had this opportunity. We walked around with the buyers before the auction and looked at the carcasses. This was very interesting to me since I used to coach meat judging teams. They were all marked with the official grade and it was interesting to compare them. They were also marked as to whether they were Kobe beef or other Japanese beef. Kobe beef brings significantly more than other beef. When the sale starts the buyers sit on heated cushions because it is cold in the market and they want the buyers to be comfortable. Any farmers that want to watch their beef sell stand at the back of the room. Mr. Yoshimitsu insisted that my interpreter and I take his seats and he stayed and explained the auction process to us. As you can see from the pictures below the carcass is brought in and a TV monitor shows a close-up view of the rib eye. Also displayed is the name of the producer, place it was produced, father’s name, mother’s father’s name, age in months, whether it is a steer or heifer and weight. All of these can change the final price that will be paid. The bidders have buttons they push to bid and the display indicates how many people are bidding at any time. When we were looking at the carcasses before the sale we met the producer of lot 506 and were told that he was a famous farmer. The pictures below are of his beef and it brought the most per pound of any in the sale on this day. It brought 3,310 JPY per kg or a total of 1,037,354 JPY which is approximately 10,600 USD. A Japanese beef actually brought more total dollars because the other breeds are much larger than the Kobe beef it weighted 448.2 kg and brought a total of 1.3 million JPY or approximately 13,300 USD.

After the auction we went to one of the farms that is in the Kobe city limits. Again, this is more like a county in the U.S. and it was quite a drive around winding mountain roads north of Kobe. The farm’s parent company is Centennial Flour in Portland, Oregon. The gentleman who manages it used to work in their flour mill in Kobe and had been to Oregon for training in the flour mill business. The farm was started in 1972 and it currently has 600 cattle. They have started to breed some of their own cattle recently. He showed me some of the registration papers and made me a copy of one of them. They breed using artificial insemination exclusively and the prefecture government controls the semen. It must be ordered from them and you very rarely get all of the ones you ask for in your order. The limited genetic diversity that is available in the Tajima breed has caused line breeding to occur and this has caused fertility problems in the cows. It often takes several tries to achieve conception but because of the small number of available cows they go to great lengths, including hormone injections to get a pregnancy. All of their hay and feed must be imported. They get Timothy hay from the U.S. and Canada and wheat straw from Australia. This is all in small square bales. The corn, grain sorghum and wheat that they feed also come from the U.S. They also import some Wheat Bran from Indonesia. Tajima cows eat about 7-7.5 kg of feed a day but the other Japanese cattle eat 8-9 kg per day since they are larger breeds. The cattle don’t eat any colored feed such as green grass or really anything with much color. This is done because they want to limit the consumption of Vitamin A to promote marbling. They will pay a lot for what they call pink Sudan hay from the U.S. because it has almost no color. No, the cattle don’t drink beer and get massages, but they do feed some byproducts from beer production. The cattle are confined in small pens and eat and sleep all day. They say “sleepers will grow better.” It costs 700 JPY or about $7 per day to feed each steer or heifer. Heifers bring more at the market but there are less sold because most are saved as cows. The calves they buy cost in the 600,000 to 750,000 JPY range and the feed is very expensive so they need at least 1 million JPY to breakeven on the 30-35 month old cattle that they sell. All of the cattle at the farm are incredibly friendly.

I really enjoyed talking to the manager of the farm. He seemed to like it that I had come to visit his operation. He joked that in WWII our soldiers ate beef and the Japanese soldiers ate fish and if the Japanese had eaten beef maybe they would have won. He also said that when he was visiting Oregon he ate steak every night. I asked how he liked to flavor of the steak and he said it was very good since he was eating it every night. You couldn’t eat Kobe beef every night. When I asked about Free Trade Agreements and WTO, he said he was in favor of free trade and we should all compete. He also said that he thought that many Americans would like to have Kobe beef. I agreed that they would and asked if he would support lowering or eliminating the tariffs on beef imports and he again said “Yes, we should compete.” He also said that he thought that opening the market would be good for his business. I really like this gentleman and this whole day was a wonderful experience that I am sure will be one of the highlights of my fellowship. Check out the pictures of the farm below.