Wagyu literally means "Japanese cattle" but it generally refers to a type of premium beef.
Wagyu beef's appearance with its intense marbling
is very attractive. But the history and industry behind it is just as fascinating.
Eating beef used to be illegal in Japan. Now they produce a beef that is this deliciously
fatty. Strange isn't it? In this video, we are going to look at Wagyu beef.
## Beginning
Cattle were first brought into Japan some time
in the 2nd century - either via the Korean peninsula or China.
For a long time, Wagyu beef was definitely not a thing. All the way back in the late 16th
century, the Portuguese Jesuit Joao Rodrigues noted that most Japanese:
> "eat only wild game at banquets and their ordinary meals, for they regard
a man who slaughters an animal reared in his house as cruel and unclean".
Most people ate fish or birds - the latter especially more so. However, people did hunt and
eat wild boar, rabbits, and so on. But they didn't eat their cattle, and detested the practice.
In 1587, the warlord - and future anime girl - Toyotomi Hideyoshi decided to expel the
Jesuits and the Christian missionaries from Japan - the first step in an eventual purge.
Amongst his justifications for this purge was - first, the Portuguese involvement in
the slave trade. And second, their practice of killing and eating horses and cattle.
The Japanese government saw this as the first depravity towards human cannibalism.
The subsequent Tokugawa governments later banned cattle slaughter and beef-eating,
codifying the taboo into law.
This only strengthened in the 18th century. In the late 1710s,
killing a cow was a crime on par with patricide and punishable with crucifixion.
## Cow Economy
So for much of Japanese history, beef wasn't a thing.
Despite this, a Japanese merchant economy built up around the cattle.
This is because Wagyu were valuable property. Agricultural treasures
immensely valuable as animals of labor - on par with a horse.
They help draft and fertilize rice fields plus transport heavy stuff.
Cattle are great! Everyone started owning cattle.
Correction. Rich important farmers owned their own cattle. Poor people
who could not afford to own their own cattle did not own a cattle.
Rather, poorer farmers banded together with two or three families sharing the use of a single animal.
Village records in the 18th century found that these farmers would
trade their cattle to traveling cattle traders for a new one every 2-4 years.
Kind of like how people today lease cars. And in fact,
some farmers struck formal contracts with cattle traders to trade in any sick or infirm animals.
Because farmers don't want to get stuck with
a dead cow. Such a situation would be disastrous for a farmer. At the time,
Japan lived under a caste system - and only the "unclean" or the Buraku can handle the corpse.
These outcastes received the task of handling dead
cows and turning them into valuable leather, which was needed for armor.
## A Robust Economy
In 1869 - a time when domestic beef consumption was still illegal in Japan - the British Consul
in Hyogo reported a robust beef industry in Kobe - then a fishing village in the Hyogo Prefecture.
Some 60-100 head of cattle a day being slaughtered. All of which was presumably
for consumption by foreigners - like the British sailors in port at the time.
60-100 a day was probably an over-estimate. However,
it is nevertheless indicative of the fact that Kobe and the Kansai area to which it
belonged to has been doing work in the cattle industry for a very long time.
Japan's southwestern areas - near Kyoto - specialized in cattle and more than a few
people noticed it. Terashima Ryoan wrote in his popular encyclopedia in the 1700s:
> Generally speaking, in the Kantō [the North Eastern regions] there
are many horses and few cattle, while in
the Kansai [the South Western area, around Kyoto], there are many cattle and few horses
Such a divide was confirmed in 1872 when the Meiji government did the first cattle
head count. And we can continue to map it out today - the line that
separates Japan's historical "cattle country" from its "horse country".
That is why beef from places like Kobe and Matsusaka eventually became so
prominent. When Japan decided it was time to start eating their cattle,
this cattle-handling industry transitioned over their experience.
## Changing Times
Learning about this taboo might feel a bit strange,
considering the present state of beef in Japan's modern culture.
But taboos change over time. I did a video a long time ago about how the British colonialists
of Hong Kong only recently got the native Hong Kongers there to stop eating dogs in the 1950s.
After the Meiji Restoration in 1868,
the restored Meiji Emperor desired to build strong relations with the West.
Just as importantly, he wanted the people of his country to be
just as big and strong as the Westerners. Advocates for Japan's modernization saw
Buddhism's refusal to eat meat as a backward religious superstition.
Beef and meat-eating had Western connotations of building strength. Thusly, if the Japanese and
their soldiers wanted the same strength then they would have to eat meat, and beef in particular.
Thusly in the late 1871, early 1872 period, the Emperor Meiji's Palace
dropped the official ban so that he might be able to eat French cuisine.
That year, the first Japanese-owned slaughterhouses opened their doors.
Even considering the modernizing attitude of the time, this seemed to have caused some issues. One
religious group apparently attacked the palace in 1872 in part due to this attitude of meat-eating.
## Tsuru
A new era in Japanese beef required an overhaul of the country's cattle breeds.
Japan's first cattle - the ones imported all the way back in the
second century - are thought to be related to those in China.
During Japan's 200-year isolation period, there eventually developed four distinct
lineages or tsuru - which literally means "vine plants". These tsuru weren't bred for food,
but instead for work - short but stout with very strong legs.
The new Meiji government decided to import live animals for breeding,
with 2,600 imported by 1887 - mostly from Europe. The intention being to
create super-cows with "triple purposes" - labor, milk and meat.
Crossbreeding started en masse in 1900 and was common until 1910 when
it was halted when it became clear that these efforts weren't being productive.
The new cattle were larger and produced more milk, but that was not what farmers
cared for. Farmers want strong cattle with good stamina and a calm temper.
These new cows didn’t have that and their beef also sucked.
In 1912, farmers restarted their breeding efforts - creating what was rebranded as
"improved Japanese cattle". By 1944, the industry had largely established the breeds we have today.
## The Breeds
Today those four breeds are the Japanese Black, Japanese Brown,
Japanese Shorthorn, and Japanese polled.
The Black is the most common, with 90-95% of the population.
The breed was first established in 1948 and is meek and easy to tame.
The Black has the famous marbling with fat content in the ribeye
area reaching 50%. For that reason, when most people talk about Wagyu,
they are talking about the beef coming from this breed of cattle.
There are a few strains of Japanese Black. What we call Kobe Beef is known as the Tajima strain.
Furthermore, only animals specifically born and raised in Kobe's Hyogo prefecture
can be called "Kobe beef". There’s even a little statue to certify. That being said,
most Japanese black today are a mix of those strains.
Second is the Japanese Brown breed. It has an interesting red color which leads people
to call it the Red Wagyu - the Japanese word (褐毛和種) for it literally means "red cattle".
It is mostly raised in Japan's south like the Kumamoto prefecture,
where TSMC is building a fab in alliance with Sony and others.
The animal itself has a docile nature, is heat tolerant and grows quickly. The meat however
is a bit more lean and doesn't have as much marbling, with 12% less fat in the ribeye area.
Third is the Japanese shorthorn, grown mostly in Japan's north. It
has been bred with the American and European shorthorns. Its meat is lean and low-fat,
so they are more known for their high milk production.
And finally, the Japanese polled, the rarest of the four breeds. It has a darker black coat than
the Japanese black and mostly hangs around a small part of the Yamaguchi prefecture.
Its meat also has less marbling. The breed had a promising future back during the first
national Wagyu beef competition in 1966 due to its high weight gain but today it is rather rare.
There are two other native Japanese cattle breeds
living on isolated islands which avoided the crossbreeding frenzy of the 1900s
due to their geological isolation. We won't go into them any further here.
## Modern Days
Starting in the 1960s, machines started taking over for plowing
the fields. Wagyu production eventually lost its other purposes and the industry
reoriented itself towards meat production.
And then in 1991, the Uruguay round of GATT talks liberalized Japan's
agricultural markets which included beef. This increased the amount of
competition in Japan's beef markets, making it one of the world's biggest.
Japan imports the majority of its beef today - mostly used for everyday food
consumption. Most such imports come from either the US or Australia.
In 2021, UN COMTRADE reports that Japan imported $1.1 billion worth of beef-ish
things from the United States and $851 million from Australia.
This competitive market forced the domestic Wagyu industry to move
upstream in the market - seeking meats that can command more premium prices.
## Meat Grades
Meat evaluation grades in Japan depend on two factors - yield and quality.
Yield grades are a mathematical function of the ratio of meat to the dressed carcass.
The Quality grade takes into account meat firmness, fat color, fat luster,
and marbling. Marbling refers to the amounts of intramuscular fat and is theorized to
have come about based on selecting Wagyu animals based on their physical endurance.
The animals developed the marbled fat to have energy for sustained
agricultural work like pulling plows. Studies of the Japanese Black cattle
have found a higher proportion of slow twitch fibers compared to other breeds.
The fat is so soft because it has a high ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids or
MUFA compared to saturated fatty acids. Such MUFA also have lower melting points,
which contributes to how the beef sort of melts.
The marbling is judged using the Beef Marbling Standard, which in Japan goes
from 1 to 12 with 1 being the lowest and 12 highest. The standard was originally
based on a plastic model made in 1988, but replaced with a set of photographs in 2008.
Numbers 8 to 12 are given a 5 grade. This score is combined with the
standard for the other aforementioned factors to get a final Quality grade.
You then combine the Yield and Quality grades together to get your final grade.
The Japanese grade looks at the meat between the 6th and 7th thoracic rib
1 hour after ribbing. In America they look at the 12-13th rib.
Over time in Japan, the percentage of intramuscular fat has gone up.
Fat percentage in the highest third marbling grades went from
31.7% in the 1980s to over 40% in the 2010s. Some types can clear over 60%.
## Wagyu Life
Conventional wisdom in Japan holds that the
amount of marbling in a Wagyu is 60% genetics and 40% farmer's efforts.
Today, most Wagyu beef cattle are kept in small
farms. The average head count per farm in 2014 was 44.6 between all breeds.
Unusually, Japanese cattle farmers are split into
two groups - calf production farmers and fattening farmers.
The former breeds calves via artificial insemination and raise them for eventual
auction at two tiers between 2-4 months and 6-12 months.
The latter farmers then buy the calves and carefully fatten them with great care
based on the market demand for the eventual meat.
They are usually fed a high-energy diet two or three times a day - the food being
a mix of imported formulated feed and hay/rice straw. As the cattle's final day approaches,
the proportion of formulated feed increases to almost 85%.
Growth hormones are forbidden, but farmers have been raising
the amount of Vitamin A levels in order to produce better marbling.
The average slaughtered Wagyu is 29 months old and weighs 755 kilograms,
but you can go on fattening them for as long as 50 months.
It is expensive work, with the cost of Wagyu production taking up to 90% of the
price. At final, the animal can be worth something from 800,000 to 1.4 million yen.
## Exported Wagyu
You might have noticed the presence of Wagyu imported from places like Australia.
The Japanese Wagyu Registry Association has never allowed the export of their
Wagyu. But a few were smuggled out to places like Australia and the United
States. One notable incident with a particular farmer saw the export of some 240 wagyu cows.
Japan ended such legal exports in 1999,
but illegal smuggling and exports of Wagyu eggs or sperm has persisted. This is a crime
in Japan punishable by 10 years in prison or a fine of 10 million yen.
That being said, it is already out there. Australia exports more Wagyu
or Wagyu-hybrid beef than Japan, and at much cheaper prices. Though the Japanese
industry will insist that it isn't really Wagyu unless it's raised there.
Furthermore, cattle industries in other countries have been trying to upscale
their own breeds of cattle in search of similar Wagyu-ish prestige. For instance,
Korean Hanwoo cattle are a fast rising competitor.
They use similar techniques to the Japanese and as a result produce a beef that contains
similarly high amounts of MUFA like oleic acid - 47.3% compared to the Wagyu's 52.9%.
And recently cattle farmers in China have also started applying similar finishing
methods for their own cattle, hinting at the possibility of a future Chinese Wagyu.
## Conclusion
For all its prestige, the Japanese Wagyu industry is aging. The number
of Wagyu farms in Japan - and Korea for that matter - has been slowly
declining. Suffering from the same issues plaguing many other Japanese industries.
This decline in supply has caused the price of calves to get increasingly high. In response,
institutes are studying ways to shorten the feeding period without compromising
on the meat's quality. Wagyu won’t vanish thanks to growth abroad,
but traditional methods might eventually go away in Japan.
With the future uncertain, it is interesting to look back on the history. In about 150 years, the
country turned from a place where beef consumption was entirely illegal to eating and producing some
of the highest priced beef around. Another example of the wild twists and turns of Japanese history.