2024-01-26 12:45:00
Every year, its queue gets longer. It was 30 in 2022, and climbed to 43 this year. But why would customers be willing to wait almost half a century? For… Kobe beef croquettes.
Here is the winner of the best shrimp croquette in Brussels 2023:
The best meat at a bargain price
But not just any. Those from Asahiya, a small family butcher shop that doesn’t look like much and located in the town of Takasago, in Hyogo, in western Japan. Founded in 1926, it sold meat products – including Kobe beef – for decades before launching its famous beef croquettes after World War II. However, it was not until the rise of the Internet in the early 2000s that these famous fried potato and beef croquettes became real phenomena.
The buzz was born from a business idea that was initially unprofitable. Shigeru Nitta, the third generation owner of Asahiya Butchery, told CNN that he realized that customers were reluctant to pay a fortune online, even for premium beef. He therefore decided to sell kibbles at a price of 270 JPY (€1.65) each even though the beef they contain alone costs around 400 JPY (€2.50) each. The idea? Making their customers fall so crazy about their kibble that they are motivated to buy their Kobe beef afterwards. At the beginning, he only produced 200 kibbles per week and relied on ultra-local sourcing – since the beef is raised on site and directly produced in Hyogo prefecture – to save money.
14 years of waiting in 2016 already
This contrast between the very low price of the kibble and the quality of the ingredients (three-year-old female Kobe beef classified A5 and potatoes from a local ranch), soon attracted the media. This is a report that will boost the popularity of the address in the early 2000s. So much so that they decided to stop sales in 2016, because the waiting time was already over 14 years. But the calls never stopped and Asahiya ended up resuming orders in 2017 by increasing the price. Production goes from 200 kibbles per week to 200 kibbles per day.
Despite the increase in the price of its kibbles, the company remains in deficit since the cost of Kobe beef has doubled at the same time. Fortunately, half of the people who try the kibble end up ordering the Kobe beef, which remains a good marketing strategy according to Mr. Nitta. Today, each box of kibble, which includes five pieces, sells for 2,700 yen (€16.70). The customers who receive them today nevertheless placed their order… around ten years ago. In 2024, there would already be 63,000 people in the “queue”.
Don’t want to wait?
The store has learned to manage this demand, in particular by sending an information letter to customers to inform them of the estimate of their delivery. The only downside is that some people sometimes change their email address in the meantime. For those who are impatient, there is another way to taste the famous Asahiya croquettes. You can go directly to the butcher’s which mainly sells meat, but also two other types of croquettes to take away, the “Tor Road” made from chuck (€2.80 each) and the “Kitanozaka” made from beef. lean (€2.20). It’s certainly not Kobe, but at least you won’t have to wait years before eating it…
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