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By Ken Dey, The Idaho Statesman, Boise Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Jan. 5, 2006 - It may be called the Rolls Royce of
meats, but it took a $41 hamburger to catapult Kobe beef out of gourmet
magazines and into the mainstream of American culture. And while most
people associate the high-priced beef with Japan, few realize
it´s more likely to come from cattle raised in Idaho. The Old Homestead Steak House in New York City created a stir
last month by putting a $41 Kobe beef hamburger on its menu. The media
frenzy that followed put the spotlight on Boise-based Snake River
Farms, the company that provided the hamburger to the Old Homestead.
"The $41 hamburger really jolted our business. The phone has been
ringing off the hook," said Jay Theiler, marketing director of Snake
River Farms. "We had no idea it would get this crazy. We thought: Who
would be silly enough to pay $41 for a burger?" But many were. In one
day alone, the New York restaurant said, it sold more than 200 of the
20-ounce gourmet burgers to customers including "Sopranos" star James
Gandolfini and New York Mets baseball star Mike Piazza. Although
it´s the burger that is bringing the most attention to Snake
River Farms, a subsidiary of the Agri Beef Co., it´s the quality
of Kobe beef that has created a loyal following of steak lovers
worldwide who are willing to pay more for what the company calls
"butter knife beef." The history of Kobe beef, the product of Japanese Wagyu
cattle, is far removed from the near mystical status the animals have
obtained in recent years. Even the name of the breed, Wagyu, has
assumed mythic connotations, when it fact the word means "Japanese
cattle." The breed made its way from China, across the Korean Peninsula
and into Japan during the second century, where Wagyu were used as
draft animals to plow Japanese fields. Once the Japanese found that the
animals were better on the plate than pulling a plow, the breed
flourished in the Kobe area of Japan. At one time, sampling Kobe beef
meant travelling to Japan or visiting an exclusive restaurant or store
that imported the meat. But in the past decade, Snake River Farms and
other Kobe beef producers have been raising Wagyu cattle in the United
States. Agri Beef Co. brought 120 full-blooded Wagyu cattle and shipped
them to the United States 10 years ago to start its Kobe beef business,
Theiler said. Snake River Farms breeds its cattle on the company ranch
in Baker City, Ore. Animals are then fed on company feed lots in
American Falls and processed at the J.R. Simplot Co. meat-packing plant
in Nampa. Snake River Farms is now one of the major distributors of Kobe
beef. The firm sells the highly marbled beef to restaurants and retail
outlets worldwide. Because it´s a privately held company, Snake
River Farms doesn´t release sales figures, but Theiler said the
company sold just less than 3 million pounds of beef in 2002, an
increase of 32 percent from the previous year. The company expects its
business to double in the next three to five years. It was only eight
months ago that the company first introduced Kobe beef hamburger to the
market, and hamburger sales are now almost a quarter of the
company´s overall sales. "The reality is that it´s as hot
right now as it´s ever been, more product in the marketplace and
more people exposed," said R.L Freeborn, president of the American
Wagyu Association and owner of Kobe Beef America Inc., a rival producer
in Bend, Ore. Freeborn, whose company distributes products in many of the
same markets as Snake River Farms, said raising Kobe beef is a good
niche market that has excellent returns on an investment. "This is the
Bentley or Rolls Royce of the meat industry," he said. Kobe beef ranges
in price from just less than $5 a pound for the hamburger to more than
$40 a pound for tenderloin. Regular supermarket hamburger sells for $2
a pound, while tenderloin steak sells for about $11 a pound. Dave
Faulk, owner of the Porterhouse, a specialty grocery store in Eagle,
recently became the first Idaho location to carry Snake River´s
Kobe beef. Faulk expects the demand for the beef to grow as more people
have a chance to taste it. "The flavor is intense," he said.
"It´s very rich. A little goes a long way." Despite their
successes, Lindsay and Theiler are still hoping to see Kobe beef served
in a Treasure Valley restaurant. They approached some local restaurants
when they first started distributing it, but restaurant owners thought
it would be too expensive for local diners, Theiler said. The price may
be higher, Theiler said, but the taste is worth it. "Getting it in
people´s mouths is the key," he said. Kobe beef good fat A Kobe beef steak is fatty or, as the steak connoisseurs would
like to say, "marbled." It´s the marbling that gives the steak
its tender, juicy flavor. Although it´s highly marbled, the fat
in a Kobe beef steak is lower in saturated fat (the bad fat) and higher
in unsaturated fat (the good fat), Snake River Farms officials say.
Kobe beef is also raised with hormone-free feed. The steaks come in
three different grades that all score better than the U.S. Department
of Agriculture´s standard grades of Select, Choice and Prime. Kobe beef grades line up like this: One important bull Behind every good steak there´s a bull. And at Snake
River Farms, that bull´s name is Fukutsuru. The Wagyu bull was
born in the Kobe area of Japan and has been the main breeding bull for
Snake River Farms. Fukutsuru is renowned for his marbling
characteristics, a genetic trait that has led to his offspring
producing some of Snake River Farms´ top grades of Kobe beef.
Washington State University has ranked Fukutsuru as the top marbling
bull in the United States. But all good things come to an end. Wagyu
bulls live about 13 years and last year Fukutsuru went to the big
pasture in the sky. But all is not lost. Thanks to the 100,000 units of
Fukutsuru´s semen that the company has had cryogenically frozen,
Fukutsuru will continue to be the bull behind some of the best beef to
hit the plates of diners for another decade to come. Pampered beef What a life. Daily massages, free beer and your coat brushed with sake. As the popularity of Kobe beef has spread, many media outlets have reported that Wagyu cattle are special because their owners massage them, feed them beer and give them sake baths. Those myths may have been based in fact back in Japan, but in America they´re nothing more than bull you-know-what. Some Japanese producers still use massage to relieve stress and muscle stiffness for animals that are often raised in confined spaces. Beer also gives the Japanese animals their own case of "munchies," which helps stimulate appetite during the warm summer months. Brushing with sake softens the coat, which Japanese producers believe improves meat quality. But American producers say these practices have no proven effect on meat quality and aren´t used by U.S producers. "If you study the physiology of the animal, it´s just impossible for a 130-pound man to push or rub an oxen that is 1,800 to 2,000 pounds and have any effect on the meat," said R.L. Freeborn, president of the American Wagyu Association. "But if a man feels better for doing it, I´m all for it." ----- Copyright (c) 2006, The Idaho Statesman, Boise Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail [email protected]. LSE:RR, Unknown:JRS, |