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1.
Developing the market for U.S. beef in Japan
2.
Products for the Japanese market
3.
Japanese requirement for BSE testing
4.
Thoughts on the future: beef in Asian markets, the U.S.
beef industry
W: I read that, based upon your recent
trip to Japan, you think the Japanese consumers will continue
to demand testing. What convinced you of that?
F: Well, based on what I saw when
I was over there, there were two things. [First, it
was ] seeing first hand, talking to some consumers.
Of course, the translator could have misled me, but
we stopped people in the store and asked them as they
were picking up meat. It was in one of the biggest retailers
in Japan. We were there with a television crew. Some
of them were a little bashful about speaking on camera
[but] we asked them. Then, we also relied upon the meat
export federation…and they remain convinced that
Japan is not going to change their approach to this
because it is important to the consumer.
Then, since all this has happened, I think we’ve
been in just about every newspaper and television station
in Japan. And the feedback we get from these reporters—who
knows, they could be biased one way or another—but
[one reporter] told me a week ago that the old people
in Japan really appreciate what we are doing. That surprised
me, because I thought this might me more of a young
person’s issue, sort of the freedom of choice
and that type of thing, but she said that her mother
wanted her to say that she was appreciative of what
we were doing and that it was important to the older
people of Japan as well as the younger people. She asked
me an interesting question. She said what would you
like to say to the consumers of Japan? And my response
was just that we had a tremendous respect for what they
value and we appreciate their long-term loyalty to a
company that would supply what they wanted. There was
an article, or maybe it was an email—we are getting
hundreds of these emails, maybe in the thousands now—that
said, it is just wrong to say to your customer that
you are dumb or you don’t know what you talking
about; you shouldn’t ask for this just because
it is not scientifically needed, or why are you so dumb
to think that you need to have this. That’s not
what you tell your customer.
We are not a company in an industry that has to try
to sell people something that they don’t want.
For thirty years I’ve been involved in agriculture.
One of the reasons I got into agriculture was because
you don’t have to go convince somebody that they
want something. They are going to eat food. And it’s
whether yours is better than someone else’s, and
it’s the market. The price is involved and the
quality is involved. You don’t have to sell them
something that’s not [wanted]. So we don’t
hesitate to say to a customer we don’t think you
need this and here’s why, but then when that customer
comes back and tells you, thanks for telling me this
but this is still what I want, then your next thing
is well, here’s what it is going to cost you.
It’s going to be more trouble for us to do it;
we’ll have to go to extra expense; it’s
got to be worth our while; so here’s what we have
to charge you. They just say, “great, let’s
go,” and that’s the case here.
I am totally convinced [that the Japanese will continue
to demand testing], and I don’t know whether it’s
fifty percent of the population or twenty percent, or
a hundred, but whatever it is, the market should determine
that. What should happen is that the market should open
back up and we should still be able to continue to test.
Even if the [Japanese] government tomorrow said ok,
the markets are open and testing is not required, we
would still like to test. It will be interesting to
see whether, after the trade is opened up so that they
no longer can say that every body is going to have to
test, is the USDA still going to tell us we can’t
do that? I suppose it looks right now like that’s
what they would tell us.
I thought that the letter that Nancy Landon Kassebaum
wrote [to the USDA] was great. I can’t imagine
that she would write that letter if she did not know
or have a feeling that Japan was going to still insist
[on testing]. [Even if there is]some type of compromise,
for example, [allowing us to] test old cattle, well
[what we process] is only one percent old cattle. Plus,
it’s not what Japan is asking for. [They] are
asking for all cattle to be tested.
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Thoughts on the future: beef in Asian markets, the U.S.
beef industry
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