Pictured: Jay Theiler welcomes the Japan buyer team to the True West plant. Photo courtesy of USMEF.
A team of buyers from major Japanese beef importers came to the United States to learn about U.S. beef production. The team visited U.S. Meat Export Federation headquarters in Denver before getting an in-depth view of the full beef supply chain in Idaho and Kansas.
Jay Theiler, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Agri Beef and USMEF’s current chair-elect, hosted the team for a tour of the new True West Beef processing facility in Jerome, Idaho.
“We had about a dozen buyers that represented four of the major beef importing companies in Japan
come to visit us here in Idaho,” he says. “We had the great opportunity to show them all the steps in the beef supply chain, starting with ranching, going to a ranch operation, and then a feedyard. So they really got to see a good overview of all the steps in our U.S. beef supply chain, and see the focus that we put on quality.”
The team also visited a cow-calf operation in Idaho and met with representatives from the Idaho Beef Council, Idaho Department of Agriculture, Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, Washington State Beef Commission, and Oregon Beef Council. They also toured the National Beef processing facility in Dodge City, Kan., and learned about the Kansas ranching and cattle feeding sectors. Theiler says maintaining that relationship with Japanese buyers is key for the beef industry.
“There’s not enough beef in Japan, per se, for all domestic consumption, so they rely on trading
partners. And like I said, with the U.S., it’s been such a long relationship that they really do appreciate
the quality that we produce here,” he says. “There’s a lot of items that go over there that are not necessarily consumed here, domestically. And if you look at as an industry, exports in total are around $415 a head, but $75 of that actually comes from Japan. So it’s actually a critical market.”
