Exporters are bracing for a consumer backlash in Japan against beef following the confirmation of several cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Japan this fall.
The Canada Beef Export Federation reports beef consumption fell by as much as 50 percent in Japan after a Japanese dairy cow tested positive for BSE earlier this fall.
Tissue samples examined in the United Kingdom confirmed the five-year-old cow had developed the brain wasting disease after it displayed neurological problems and had difficulty walking.
Beef sales also slumped in South Korea, but have since recovered to near normal levels when no trace of the disease was found in that country.
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“There is no positive angle to this,” said Ted Haney of the export federation in Calgary.
Last year Canada shipped about 18,500 tonnes of fresh and frozen beef to Japan, where considerable inroads had been made in the food service and retail sectors in recent years.
About 25 percent of the Canadian product is fresh while most chilled meat ends up in retail stores outside of Tokyo. The rest is frozen beef used by the food service industry.
Tokyo retailers reported that beef sales dropped by nearly half after the disease was confirmed. Regional outlets reported anywhere from five to 15 percent lower beef sales.
Consumers backed away from beef because of fears of a human version of BSE called Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. It is believed to be caused by eating infected beef, particularly products containing lymphatic tissue, organs, spinal cord material and meat scraped from bones.
When the BSE crisis hit the U.K. in the mid-1990s, ground beef was pinpointed as the likeliest cause because it contained a variety of beef parts including mechanically deboned meat, offal and ground whole muscle cuts.
Haney said little ground beef is eaten in Japan.
Most beef there is shredded or thinly sliced for lower-end food service outlets. It tends not to contain bone or lymphatic tissue.
Last year, Japan exported 69 tonnes, or four container loads, of beef while it imported 780,000 tonnes from the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Domestically, it produced 364,145 tonnes.
It is believed cattle develop the disease after consuming feed containing infected meat and bone meal.
Japanese farmers were feeding domestic and imported meat and bone meal supplements even though their government advised against it.
On Oct. 4 the government banned imported meat and bone meal products purchased mainly from the European Union, where the disease has been diagnosed. It had earlier introduced new regulations covering the rendering and incineration of meat and bone meal as well as other rendered products.
In the first BSE case, the government learned the carcass was not incinerated, but rendered, putting the infected meat and bone meal into the feed chain.
The cow was born in Hokkaido on a farm that raised dairy heifers for farms near Tokyo. It was likely fed bovine meat and bone meal as a protein supplement. Three more suspected cases have since been confirmed.
“This is a strong signal to all Asian countries to ban meat and bone meal,” Haney said.
The ban has created havoc for the rendering industry because the product may not be used as a feed supplement, pet food or fertilizer.
Effective March 2002, the Japanese government has pledged $129 million in compensation to renderers. This is to cover the cost of incinerating 200,000 tonnes of meat and bone meal.
In addition, all animals older than 24 months that exhibit neurological symptoms and all slaughter animals older than 30 months must be tested for BSE. There are no effective live tests.
