Dressed carcasses of “Kobe Beef,” one of the highest quality Wagyu (Japanese cattle) beefs, recently began to be shipped to the Tokyo market on regular basis. Kobe Beef’s carcasses had been available only at the markets in Hyogo prefecture.
SFoods Inc., one of the biggest meat wholesalers in the country, based at Nishinomiya-shi, Hyogo prefecture, began to bring about Kobe Beef carcasses into the Tokyo Central Meat Wholesale Market since late March, which are put at auction at a pace of once per month.
People of the SFoods expect that Kobe Beef’s value appraised in Tokyo, the biggest Beef consuming city in the world, will be further reflected upon the future market prices.
Kobe Beef had been auctioned only at three markets in Hyogo prefecture until this March. According to rules set out by the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association, the highest quality beef, which are processed and classified at the meat processing centers in Hyogo prefecture, is only entitled to be labeled as “Kobe Beef.”
When the SFoods experimentally put on the Tokyo market dressed carcasses of five heads of female cattle in late March, the successful bid prices were almost 20 percent higher than those at the markets in Hyogo prefecture. People in the Kobe Beef producing area most welcome the recent movement expecting “The brand value of our Kobe Beef will be much more raising.”