Aiming at Retail for U.S. Beef Patties in Japan

Jul 04, 2022

Gourmet U.S. beef burgers are catching on with consumers who have responded very well to USMEF promotions in Japan’s foodservice sector. Encouraging Japanese consumers to prepare and cook burgers at home, however, has been a challenge.

“It is not common for Japanese to prepare hamburgers by themselves at home,” says Tatsuru Kasatani, marketing director, USMEF Japan. “And previous attempts by retailers to pre-package burgers have failed as the product and package sizes were too large for consumers.

A recent promotion by the AEON supermarket chain tested that idea by featuring smaller pre-packaged burgers. With funding from the Beef Checkoff Program and Nebraska Corn Board, USMEF supported the promotion with tasting demonstrations, point-of-sale materials and the customized development of a special website that consumers can access for cooking information through a QR code.

AEON was very pleased with the results and is planning additional promotions in July and August. USMEF’s goal is to get the word out to retailers that Japanese consumers will purchase American burgers at retail, if marketed correctly.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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