June 1, 2007

Australian beef leads Japanese "gyudon" market

Australia's beef briskets are now dominating Japan's "gyudon" (beef bowl) market since 2003 after US has was unable to fill the supply due to mad cow disease.

Foodservice group Zensho, one of largest users of Australian beef in Japan and operates the Sukiya gyudon chain, increased its sales by 6.3 percent for the Japanese financial year (JFY) ended March 31 2007, to 204.5 billion yen (A$2.29 billion, US$1.67 billion), with a net profit of 6.1 billion yen (US$50.07 million).

Japan's gyudon pioneer, Yoshinoya's, sales rose to ¥135.5 billion (A$1.51 billion, US$1.11 billion), making a net profit of ¥2 billion or US$16.41 million (in the JFY to the end of February 2007) for the first time in three years. Yoshinoya resumed limited sales of the US beef gyudon last since September of last year.

Matsuya Foods, on the other hand, had a challenging year - recording a net loss of ¥1 billion from sales worth ¥ 60.7 billion. Matsuya also re-launched beef menus using US products, but did not attract enough customers due to limited supply.

Consumption of imported beef for the last JFY (April 2006 to March 2007) was 454,711 tonnes - 37 percent below the pre-Japan mad cow disease peak in 2000. The recent trend, however, has been positive with an increase of 5 percent in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period last year.