JAPAN Popular chain restaurant will drop top item if U.S. beef ban isn't lifted
Grain-fed American beef has a taste that can't be duplicated, the eatery says.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
TOKYO -- Japan's decision to ban the import of American beef after the discovery of mad cow disease in Washington state may be squeezing U.S. cattlemen, but it's strangling one of Japan's biggest fast-food chains -- Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya has more than 900 restaurants spread throughout Japan and they are about to run out of the key ingredient of their most popular dish: strips of USDA choice beef.
"It has to be American beef," Shuji Abe, president of Yoshinoya, moaned recently.
Yoshinoya simmers the beef in onions and herbs and piles it on top of steamed white rice. The concoction is served almost instantly to customers who sit themselves down at counters in the restaurants. Starting at 280 yen, or $2.65, a bowl, it's one of the most popular meals in Japan, and it may soon run out.
"We have a one-month stock of beef. But as soon as stocks run out, we have to stop serving our beef bowl and find alternatives," said Abe.
Yoshinoya, which started out serving quick meals to Tokyo fish market workers in 1899, imports 99 percent of its beef from the United States. The company says there's no substitute for it.
"U.S. cattle are raised on grain," said Haruhiko Kizu, a Yoshinoya spokesman. "That's different from Australian cattle, which mainly eat grass. The American beef contains just the right fat to make our beef bowl juicy and tasty."
U.S. beef is also produced in enough quantities to make it cheap, and its quality is consistent, so it can support a huge international operation such as Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya has 199 restaurants overseas, including 83 in the United States.
"We spent more than a century developing the juicy taste of the Yoshinoya brand," said Kizu. "The taste of Yoshinoya has to be the same all over the world. You can't get the Yoshinoya taste without juice from American beef."
Loyal customers
In any case, Japanese customers like the taste.
"I compared beef bowls with other restaurants. But Yoshinoya is the best of the best," says Haruyasu Toda, 40, who dropped in for lunch at Yoshinoya's Yurakucho branch in downtown Tokyo. Toda, who works for the electronics company NEC, ordered the regular beef bowl for $2.65 and a 40-cent bowl of miso soup, made from fermented soybean paste. "I come here four or five times a month. It's tasty, fast and cheap!"
Yoshinoya has been forced to draw up a survival business plan.
"This is not the first crisis for us," Kizu said. "We experienced a Japanese mad cow case two years ago."
At that time, sales at Yoshinoya dropped by almost half. By last fall, sales had recovered.
"So, we have developed a so-called risk management strategy," he said. "We have developed other menus such as curry, chicken and salmon bowl for the future."
Other outbreaks
But the food business isn't so easy these days. Earlier this month, an outbreak of bird flu killed 6,000 chickens in Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan and led to the slaughter of 34,000 chickens to halt spread of the disease. This flu was the same type that killed five people in Vietnam.
Even though Yoshinoya doesn't use domestic chicken, "it is not good news," said Kizu. "I just feel unpleasant to hear the news of bird flu."
"The world has become too sensitive about food, I think," said Masaki Kadokura, 57, after finishing his lunch at Yoshinoya. "There have been SARS, chicken flu in South Korea, herpes for carp in Japan."
SARS, an acute respiratory infection, is believed to come from civet cats in China. A herpes virus outbreak decimated carp farms in Japan in November.
Pressuring the government
Kadokura, who works for a trading company, said he wishes he could keep eating his beef bowl at Yoshinoya. He hopes Japan will allow the importation of U.S. beef after proper inspections and testing procedures, though he's afraid the precautions may make the prices climb.
That option, though, looks unlikely. After an 11-day trip to the United States and Canada, a delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on Monday said there are still no assurances that more cases of mad cow disease won't be discovered in the United States.
Yoshinoya has been unsuccessful in urging the Japanese government to allow importation of safe, disease-free cuts of meat. Yoshinoya doesn't use potentially infected parts such as the brain and spinal tissue.
The government is demanding that the United States adopt an inspection system that's at least as rigorous as Japan's and begin checking every cow for the disease.
If the import ban on beef continues, Yoshinoya will soon run through its stocks. Yoshinoya has already suspended its extra large beef bowl to conserve supplies. It started offering a curry bowl at $3.80 this month.
"It might be interesting to try new menus," said Masayuki Asami, 31. "I may come once or twice."
But Toda wouldn't hear of it. "I have no interest in trying a curry bowl," he said. "I am only interested in their beef bowl."