Wagyu (和牛 Wagyū, “Japanese cow”) is any of four Japanese breeds of beef cattle, the most desired of which is genetically predisposed to intense marbling and to producing a high percentage of oleaginous unsaturated fat.

Four Wagyu bulls were brought to the USA in 1976 from Japan’s Tottori Prefecture for cross breeding with Angus cattle creating the American Wagyu Kobe Style Beef. The crossbred Wagyu cattle were fed a mixture of corn, alfalfa, barley and wheat straw mimicking the Japanese cattle diet. In the mid 1990’s, about 40 more full blooded Wagyu male and females were imported to the US for breeding.

There a few domestic ranches raising pure blood American Wagyu beef today, however, most of what we see domestically are a Wagyu/Angus mixed breed. The Wagyu influence contributes to the intense marbling and the Angus influence contributes to the animal’s size.

DISTINCT

“Wagyu” is one of the most famouse beef known world wide. Kuroge Wagyu is a breed of Japanese Black haired cattle. Each newborn calf stays with its natural mother for about 10 months. The calf is then sold to farmers who feed and fattened it with hay, rice straw, other roughage, barley and corn for the next 24 months. Extensive care and much labor is spent to raise the cattle resulting in beef whose snow white fat throughly marbles the muscle meat. Only virgin heifers and steers are qualified to become Wagyu.

FAT CONTENT

Wagyu has this soft fat with a low melting point (7 degree celcius), due in part to its high proportion of monounsaturated fats, to go along with high levels of omega 3 and 6. Fat is where the flavour of meat resides, and this particular dissolving fat makes for the juiciest, richest steak in the world.

HIGH QUALITY

When you simply cannot compromise quality, there is no other line of beef that will do. Wagyu should not be confused with Kobe Style or American Style Kobe Beef. This is the benchmark for quality for the world with Japanese being the original inventor of this level of quality through generations of breeding and refinement of their feeding techniques.