Why Olive Wagyu Is So Expensive | So Expensive Food | Insider Business

This is one of the rarest steaks in the world. Known as olive wagyu, it costs over $500 a pound, which is almost 60% more expensive than other high-grade cuts of wagyu. Produced by feeding wagyu cows a special feed made from olives, it's one of the most expensive meats you can buy. The technique of feeding olives to wagyu cows was actually only developed in recent decades. And the steak wasn't always this pricey. So, what makes olive wagyu different from other wagyu? And why is it so expensive? The sun is rising over Shodoshima in Japan's inland sea. Masaaki Ishii has been working as a chef and raising cattle here for half a century. Shodoshima, literally Small Bean Island, was once famed for its tzatziki beans. But after olive trees were introduced from Greece just over a century ago, it became more famous as the home of Japan's oldest olive groves. Wagyu beef is already known for its intense marbling and high levels of oleic acid, both of which make the meat extra tender and flavorful. Masaaki set out to create a wagyu even richer in oleic acid. Olive oil contains a lot of plant-based oleic acid, so when I brought it home and cooked it, the cows wouldn't even look at it. Even if I fed them with my tongue, they wouldn't eat it even after two or three days. My 90-year-old grandmother saw me peel the persimmon skin and dry it. She said, But instead of using fresh olives, Masaaki turned to olive pomace, the residue from olive oil production. Doing so allowed him to recycle a waste product from one of Shodoshima's major industries. Olive pomace still contains a lot of oil. Drying it is a difficult and costly process, one that took Masaaki almost six years to perfect. Olive oil is the most expensive material in Japan. We dry it three times a day, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. We dry it by hand, and by drying it, the scent of the olive oil becomes caramel. The cows love to eat it. It has a very strong scent and flavor. When I brought it home, the cows didn't even look at it. They just sat next to it and ate it. I still can't forget how impressed they were. Around two months before the cattle are shipped out, Masaaki starts mixing the dried pomace into their feed every day. Two months before shipping, I fed them more than 100 grams of olive oil a day. When the cattle are shipped to the market, they are very happy to receive 250 grams of pomace a day. That's basically what I do. I feed them 250 grams of pomace every day for more than two months. Every morning, Masaaki comes in to check on his cows while they're still asleep. When Masaaki comes in, the cows don't know what's going on, so they go back to sleep. But they don't go back to sleep. When Masaaki wakes up in the evening, they go somewhere else. As soon as Masaaki wakes up, they go back to sleep. When Masaaki wakes up, they go back to sleep. While other varieties of wagyu are typically sold to be processed at 24 to 26 months, olive wagyu doesn't ship out until 30 months. The longer raising time and high cost of the feed make olive wagyu difficult to come by. But despite the limited supply, it has become especially popular with chefs. When Masaaki first started experimenting with olives, he kept it a secret from his buyers. But in 2010, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyasaki Prefecture devastated Japan's livestock industry. Despite successful efforts to contain the disease locally, the damage was devastating. Countries like the United States suspended beef imports from Japan. The disaster struck again with the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011. As Japan struggled to recover and rebuild its economy, Masaaki looked towards strengthening his prefecture's beef production. He led the charge towards working with more local olive farmers. In 2012, other farmers on Shodoshima started following Masaaki's methods to raise olive-fed cattle. Just one year later, olive wagyu began shipping to places outside of Shodoshima and Kagawa Prefecture. Today, there are about 2,500 olive-fed cattle on Shodoshima. Still, this is nothing compared to places like Kagoshima or Miyasaki, where high-quality wagyu production has been taking place for decades. On Masaaki's farm, there are just 20 head of cattle. To reach this goal, the cattle farmers of Shodoshima need help from the local olive producers. The reason I started buying cattle was because I wanted to do organic farming. That's why I started. I wanted to make this my thing. I wanted to make it a success. I wanted to make it a part of the Kagawa family. I had a lot of motivation.