
TOKYO - Even the Japanese butcher couldn't tell that the prized sirloin was from Wagyu cattle raised in Washington state.
"He said, `What?' He couldn't believe it," Raymond Jussaume Jr., a Washington State University extension trade specialist, said of the butcher's reaction to being told the beef was not raised in Japan.
The shipment of Washington beef was sent to Japan to test the market for high-quality beef from the United States, The Oregonian reported yesterday.
The meat was from a small herd of Wagyu cattle raised at WSU in Pullman.
Some U.S. exporters think the Wagyu export could backfire, however, by igniting protectionist sentiment among beleaguered Japanese cattle farmers, who view Wagyu as their last stronghold.
An official of the U.S. Meat Export Federation in Tokyo declined to comment on the Washington State University test shipment, saying the issue was "too sensitive."