TOKYO (AP) - Like many other Japanese, Kenji Miyoda, savouring one of his favourite lunches - a bowl of rice topped with beef from Australia, raw egg and spicy sauce - feels Australian beef is far safer than American beef. "It tastes OK, it's cheap, and it fills me up," the 27-year-old banker said gobbling down his $4 US meal at Sukiya, a countrywide chain that placed a full-page newspaper ad to declare it's opposed to serving U.S. beef because of safety concerns.
Australian beef was once viewed as tough and tasteless compared to its U.S. counterpart, but that stereotype is vanishing on quality upgrades by switching feed to grain, instead of just grass, to cater to the Japanese palate.
There's no doubt the Australian beef industry has been the biggest beneficiary from the serious troubles U.S. beef is facing in regaining consumer acceptance in Japan - the world's second largest economy and once a $1.4 billion export market for American beef.
The discovery of two infected cows in the United States in 2003 prompted Japan to ban U.S. beef. The reopening of the market in December went immediately awry in January, when veal cuts with backbone were found in a shipment. Such cuts are eaten in the U.S. but considered at risk for mad cow disease in Japan.
The fumbling, which U.S. officials say is an isolated error, has sent an already badly tarnished image of American-grown beef nose-diving here.
Central to its appeal is the fact that Australia has never had mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a brain-wasting ailment in cattle. Australia protects its cow herd religiously, boasting that its borders as an island country are closed to possible contamination.
In people, eating meat products contaminated with BSE is linked to more than 150 deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain, from a deadly human nerve disorder, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
Last year, Japanese restaurant chains had been preparing to serve U.S. beef with great fanfare following a two-year hiatus. And the disappointment - and shattered credibility - were devastating. These days, consumers aren't sure any more whether American shipments will ever be safe.
Raising grain-fed cows - something American cattle owners were doing for years - is a relatively new discovery for the Australians. But the Japanese appetite for "Oh-jeeh bee-fooh," as "Aussie beef" is called here, is ballooning amid an absence of American beef.
The ad for Sukiya's latest menu addition boasts that "Beef Bowl Italiano" uses "safe Aussie beef."
"We are not totally convinced we can say there's no reason to worry about the safety," of U.S. beef, it said.
The numbers tell the story: Australian beef now makes up 51 per cent of the beef consumed in Japan. Australian beef shipments to Japan surged 45 per cent to 375,000 tonnes last year from 258,000 tons in 2003.
Hideo Yamamura, meat section manager at Keisei Store Co., which runs 32 stores in Tokyo suburbs, says Australian beef has adapted well to consumer tastes.
"Frankly, it was an alternative to American beef, but it has won support from Japanese," he said, adding that his stores plan to stick with Australian beef for some time.
Japanese are notorious for their finicky eating habits, including a liking for a gourmet strand of marbled beef from Japan's "wagyu" cows famous for guzzling beer. Selling foreign beef here has been a long fight to woo people to leaner, cheaper beef.
"Australian beef has little fat but has body, and so it's good for eating everyday," said Tomoyoshi Yokota, executive chef of ANA Hotel in Tokyo, who regularly cooks Australian beef. "Japanese tastes are changing."
Beef imports from New Zealand have also grown, more than doubling to 34,500 tonnes from 15,500 over the same period, although most of the cows are grass-fed.
"There are these negative perceptions about grass-fed beef," said John Hundleby, Japan representative of Meat and Wool New Zealand, funded by livestock producer. "It's not the horrible uneatable product that some people like to portray it."
Canadian beef, banned in 2003 with American beef, is re-entering the Japanese market. Still a minor player at about five per cent of the market ahead of the ban, Canadian beef also has potential to grow because the cattle are grain-fed.
The U.S. Agriculture Department is sending a team led by acting undersecretary Chuck Lambert to Tokyo for talks this week. U.S. officials have been trying to tell the Japanese that the shipment of the prohibited veal stems from a misunderstanding of the new rules for selling beef to Japan by a U.S. government inspector.
But lobbying carries risks for a backlash from Japanese consumers, especially if it gets too heavy-handed and is perceived as political pressure from a powerful ally.
"The danger is that even if we manage to pry open the doors, maybe no consumer will be there for us," said Susumu Harada, spokesman for the U.S. Meat Export Federation in Japan, a Denver-based nonprofit trade association that promotes U.S. beef, pork, lamb and veal abroad.
"Food safety is an emotional issue."
© The Canadian Press, 2006
