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July 14th, 2020 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 33,505 times • 1 min read
Besides the incredible marbling and exquisite flavor profile, another thing to admire about Japanese Wagyu is the system of 100% traceability for every animal. The nose print certificates, which track every animal's lineage, place of birth and other details, are the carefully-managed centerpiece of this system. Starting in July of this year, we are offering Kobe Beef, and for the lucky few who are able to score some of this rare Wagyu, we...
July 2nd, 2020 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 19,305 times • 1 min read
Kobe Beef is iconic. You could visit the Medina of Fez, a pool hall in Kiev or a village in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and ask almost anyone — and they would tell you they’ve heard of Kobe Beef. There are few things in the culinary world as highly regarded or as rare. It’s scarcity has contributed to its overall aura. Only a relatively small group of farmers and processors in Hyogo Prefecture are qualified to raise it, and each calf...
February 12th, 2019 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 42,758 times • 2 min read
A5 Wagyu beef fat, when melted, is a clear oil, packed with heart-healthy oleic acid. By making this A5 Wagyu tallow at home and sharing it with your friends and family, your ordinary home cook status will instantly sky rocket to magical wizard hero chef status. Add a little to a pan, scramble in a couple of eggs with a pinch of salt and you're likely to blow people's minds. It's that good. By carefully cutting the exterior fat off of your...
August 16th, 2018 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 11,382 times • 2 min read
Rare. Delicious. Umami. Olive Wagyu, the world’s rarest beef, is back—and only Crowd Cow has it. In April, we offered Olive Wagyu for the first time ever in the United States and our extremely limited supply sold out quickly. Only a small amount of Olive Wagyu is available at a time because only a few farmers raise it. We’re thrilled to announce that we will be offering Olive Wagyu for the second time! Our Olive Wagyu special events are...
April 12th, 2018 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 14,107 times • 2 min read
A few years ago, Chef Mori was a chef at a Yakiniku House (a traditional Japanese beef grill) in Osaka when he first heard about Olive Wagyu: a rare Wagyu beef produced by feeding inawara rice straw, Italian rye grass, and toasted olive lees to Kuroge Washu cattle. It's only raised by a handful of producers in Japan and originated on a remote island called Shodoshima in Japan's smallest province. It piqued Chef Mori's interest, and would...
April 3rd, 2018 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 7,825 times • 1 min read
In October 2017, I met with Kagawa Prefecture's Governor and senior staff. Watch below or check out the transcript of my speech in Japanese, which outlined my journey from living on a farm homestay in Hokkaido 20 years ago to a current milestone: bringing Olive Wagyu from Japan to America. What follows is an explanation of how this came about in the first place. Soonafter we started Crowd Cow, friends and early customers asked, "will you...
March 5th, 2018 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 94,022 times • 2 min read
What is this “Wagyu” we’re talking about? Let me break it down for you. There are four breeds of “Wagyu” -- Japanese cattle, that is -- that are indigenous to Japan. One of them, Kuroge Washu, is genetically predisposed to high levels of marbling. It’s really hard to get authentic Wagyu 100% from the Kuroge Washu breed directly from Japan. But we didn’t just source authentic Wagyu from this Pacific Rim nation. We sniffed out the rarest of...
November 7th, 2017 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 46,498 times • 1 min read
It's the Olympic Games you've never heard of. Since 1966, Japan's beef industry has held a nationwide competition every five years to crown the best beef in the country. It's called Zenkoku Wagyu Noryku Kyoshin-kai (全国和牛能力共進会) but it's known also as "The Wagyu Olympics." There are 11 prize categories, one of the more interesting of which measures the quality of the fats (looking for things like the health-promoting and umami-generating oleic...
November 6th, 2017 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 158,283 times • 1 min read
Recently I had the privilege of spending time with one of Japan's top Kobe Beef chefs, Mitsuo Yamamoto of Steak Sakura (2-11-14 Sennichimae, Chuo-ku Namba Daiichi Bldg. 1F, Osaka) to learn how to properly grill Kobe Beef and other A5 Wagyu (as you probably know by now, there are many types of A5 Wagyu, and Kobe is only one of them). I flew into Osaka, and Chef Yamamoto opened his restaurant early so we could cook. We walked together into...
July 7th, 2017 by Joe Heitzeberg • Read 19,978 times • 2 min read
Japanese consumers enjoy a level of traceability that's almost unrivaled across the world. Any piece of beef in a Japanese retail store can be traced backward through the course of its product chain all the way back to the producer, and then even beyond -- to the individual animal on the farm. The way it works is this: You walk into any given store in Japan. You pick up a package of beef, spot the clearly-marked tracking number. You enter it...
