Beef marketed like a dream

JAPAN - Breeding cattle is in Shunichi Igarashi's blood.

But things are a lot harder for the second-generation wrangler and other Japanese cattlemen since mad cow disease struck their business, driving hordes of Japan's famously fickle consumers away from beef.

To bring those customers back, Igarashi banded together with other farmers two years ago in his native Saitama prefecture, north of neighbouring Tokyo, to sell their beef made from cattle fattened on a diet of non-genetically modified (GMO) corn and soybeans.

They call it "Yumemi-gyu", literally beef that tastes like a dream.

"We wanted to raise cattle to produce beef that would be safe and taste heavenly," said the 52-year-old Igarashi, explaining the name.

Cattle farmers in Japan have become particularly sensitive to the issue of food safety since the first domestic case of mad cow disease was discovered in September 2001, crushing consumer confidence and causing beef consumption to plunge.

To ease people's fears of getting the brain-wasting disease, which can be contracted by eating contaminated meat, Japan began checking all its cattle. It has taken several years for consumption to recover.

Some entrepreneurial suppliers are taking the added step of banding together and producing meat under a single brand, believing a wary public prefers a product they know is made under a uniform policy.

Igarashi and eight other farmers raise mostly a crossbreed of cattle and use the same non-GMO feed. The beef hit supermarket shelves from around the middle of last year.

Yumemi-gyu sells for about 525 yen ($6.80) for 100 grams at stores, about a third of the price of prime domestic "wagyu" meat from the kuroge breed.

Igarashi estimates annual sales at about 50 million yen ($646,000). Japan's total beef consumption in 2004-05 was 808,604 tonnes.

Other cattle farmers around the country are also coming together.

In neighbouring Yamanashi prefecture, famous for its wine, some farmers raise cattle on a feed that includes grape skin under the brand name "Koshu Wine Beef".

Their task may have been made easier by a lack of competition from the United States, previously a major supplier, because Japan has remained closed to American beef imports since the discovery of mad cow disease there in December 2003.

Igarashi's farm is located about an hour's train ride from bustling central Tokyo and, like many others in Japan, is family run, which in his case includes his son and younger brother.

Like all cattle in Japan, the coal-black animals at Igarashi's farm have yellow plastic tags punched into both ears at birth, displaying a 10-figure number that will help identify them through the course of their lives and after death.

The number eventually winds up on a sticker on a package of beef, which when matched with a number supplied on the internet provides consumers with information about the cattle, including age and most recent ailments.

If the beef came from Igarashi's farm, his picture will also be there, his expression serious under a white thatch of hair.

This is in contrast to the United States, which is still working on establishing a national animal identification system, which it hopes will be operational in 2009.

Washington faces a daunting task, given there are 95.8 million head of cattle being raised in the United States, according to figures supplied by the US Department of Agriculture. By comparison, Japanese farmers raise 2.7 million head of cattle for meat.

It is unclear how many buyers actually take the trouble to look for the information on the internet, but some say consumers are reassured just by seeing the numbers on the package.

"I think customers feel safe just seeing the numbers and knowing the information is there even if they don't bother to look it up," said Hitoshi Katagiri, who manages a Saitama meat shop selling only domestic beef, including Yumemi-gyu.

- REUTERS