Japan Could Be Big Lamb Market

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 19

Japan Could Be Big Lamb Market

The Asian director of the New Zealand Meat Board, Mr M. McSporran, is extremely optimistic about the prospects for New Zealand lamb in Japan. His concern is that New Zealand may not have enough lamb to meet the demand.

Soon, he believes, a decision will have to be made about the quantity of lamb that can be made available to this market.

To the end of August this year the Japanese market had taken just on 4000 tons of lamb.

Mr McSporran said that New Zealand barely had a foothold in the market, but next year could be crucial if consumption reached 10,000 tons or close to it. The stage would then have been reached where the product was acceptable at a price. Continuity of supply and reasonably stable prices were most important to the Japanese market, he said, and he would soon have to take up with the board how markets like that in Japan would be regarded. “We have a market that is receptive to meat,” he said. “It needs meat—l am absolutely convinced that lamb is the answer to the Japanese meat problem.” Mr McSporran said that in 10 years Japan might be able to take 100,000 tons of lamb. On a basis of official Japanese figures, Japan was expected to be short of meat to the extent of 340,000 tons by 1972. Mr McSporran said he did not regard the reported aversion of Japanese to the smell of lamb as being an obstacle to market development. In 80 per cent of cases where people had actually tried lamb they had commented that it did not smell. A smell, he said, was associated with lamb and mutton particularly in those parts of the world where sheep were housed. In Japan the board said that lamb had an aroma of its own. However, all recipes for use of lamb included the use of spices, which were widely used in Japan. The Meat Board is promoting lamb on a wide front in Japan and is using Japan’s largest advertising agency, Dentsu, which is also the third largest in the world. Lamb is being promoted in women’s, cookery and trade magazines and booklets are being prepared of costs of meat and vegetable dishes for use by dietitians planning meals in big factories —one shipyard for instance has 40,000 workers—and these are also being directed at caterers providing meals in schools. Handbooks are being produced for butchers as well as calendars, price tags and cooking cards and decorations for shops. This year there will have been 2400 demonstrations of preparing

lamb in large department stores.

Balloons are a part of the decorations to attract the attention of children, who it is then hoped will persuade their mothers to come to look at the lamb. The balloons are also given away to the youngsters. Seminars are held for butchers and processors, and in association with large stores cooking schools are conducted for housewives.

Half of the promotional expenditure is directed to television. Almost 95 per cent of Japanese homes now have television and one in five has colour television. Bright “spot” commercials in colour show healthy youngsters at play and then eating New Zealand “lamburgers,” of which one Japanese plant is already producing 20,000 a day. Some 350 stores in Tokyo, 350 in Osaka and 1500 in the northern island of Hokkaido sell lamb.

Among these in Tokyo Is that of Isetau, one of the biggest stores in Japan, which has about 200,000 to 250,000 customers on a Sunday and 150,000 to 180,000 on other days. Some 4m travellers pass nearby every day on surface and underground railways. A demonstration of New Zealand lamb was being held in this store late in October. Japanese girls wearing overalls bearing a distinctive New Zealand lamb insignia were cooking and then offering pieces of lamb to store patrons. New Zealand lamb was on sale in cabinets at mainly about 50 to 60 yens (14c to 16c N.Z.) per 100 grams, which is a little less than a quarter of a pound. Lamb steaks were ranging up to 100 yens (27c). By comparison, beef of the highest quality, which is extremely dear, was selling at 550 to 1000 yens (150 c to 270 c) still for 100 grams. Mr McSporran said that in less than four years Japanese meat prices had doubled. Japanese housewives bought only about 20 to 25 grams of meat at a time. Consumption of meat was relatively low, about 10 kilograms a head a year compared with 113.7 kilograms for New Zealand, and of the 35.6 per cent of its income that the average household spends on food Mr McSporran estimated that possibly less than 1 per cent was directed to meat.

■ At the moment, Mr McSporran said the Japanese had difficulty in differentiating betweep lamb and mutton, hence the price of the

two meats was relatively close. Mr B. N. Leyden, executive assistant of the board In Tokyo, believes that the

About half of the lamb now reaching the market has been boned out and Mr McSporran said that this was the sort of meat wanted.

Cf- -. '■ -• . ■■?• . future of lamb on thio market eould well Me in con-sumer-type puks of lamb, which are already being produced in Southland.