BEEF THAT TASTES SO NICE YOU’VE TO WAIT 43 YRS FOR YOUR ORDER

. . . Probably the BEST BEEF in the world

TOKYO. — If you order a box of frozen Kobe beef croquettes from Asahiya, a family-run butcher shop in Takasago City in western Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture, it’ll take another 43 years before you receive your order.

That isn’t a typo — FORTY-THREE YEARS. Founded in 1926, Asahiya sold meat products from Hyogo prefecture — Kobe beef included — for decades before adding beef croquettes to the shelf in the years following World War II.

But it wasn’t until the early 2000s that these deepfried potato and beef dumplings became an internet sensation, resulting in the ridiculously long wait buyers now face.

CNN Travel spoke to Shigeru Nitta, third-generation owner of Asahiya, two years ago.

At that time, the wait for the croquettes was a mere 30 years.

The highly coveted “Extreme Croquettes” are one of four types of Kobe beef croquettes available at Asahiya.

Can’t wait nearly four decades?

The shop’s Premier Kobe Beef Croquettes currently have a more palatable four-year waitlist.

“We started selling our products through online shopping in 1999,” Nitta said. “At that time, we offered Extreme Croquettes as a trial.”

Growing up in Hyogo, Nitta has been visiting the local ranches and beef auctions with his father since he was young.

He took over the shop from his father in 1994 when he was 30 years old.

After experimenting with e-commerce for a few years, he realised customers were hesitant to pay a hefty sum for prime beef online.

That was when he made a bold decision.

“We sold Extreme Croquettes at the price of JPY270 (US$1.80) per piece… The beef in them alone costs about JPY400 ($US2.70) per piece,” Nitta explained.

“We made affordable and tasty croquettes that demonstrate the concept of our shop as a strategy to have customers enjoy the croquettes and then hope that they would buy our Kobe beef after the first try.”

To limit the financial loss in the beginning, Asahiya only produced 200 croquettes in their own kitchen next to their shop each week.

“We sell the beef raised by the people we know. Our shop only sells meat that was produced in Hyogo Prefecture, whether it’s

Kobe beef, Kobe pork or Tajima chicken. This has been the style of the shop since before I became the owner,” said Nitta.

When a report about Asahiya’s croquettes came out in the early 2000s, their popularity skyrocketed.

“We stopped selling them in 2016 because the waiting time became over 14 years.

“We were thinking of stopping orders, but we got many calls requesting to keep offering them,” Nitta said.

Asahiya resumed accepting orders for these croquettes in 2017 but raised the price.

“At that time, we raised the price to JPY500 (US$3.40)-JPY540 (US$3.65) with consumption tax. But since the export of Kobe beef began, the prices of beef have doubled, so the fact that the production of croquettes makes a deficit has not changed,” said Nitta.