Award-Winning Wagyu

Since 1966, Japan's beef industry has held a nationwide competition every five years to crown the best beef in the country. Known as "The Wagyu Olympics" (Zenkoku Wagyu Noryku Kyoshin-kai / 全国和牛能力共進会), it features 11 prize categories. One interesting category measures the quality of fats, looking for health-promoting and umami-generating oleic acid. There is also an overall winner based on the average scores across all categories. In 2017 and 2022, Kagoshima beef took the top prize based on overall contest scores (総合得点による「団体賞」は、鹿児島県が１位). You could say that Kagoshima's A5 Wagyu is among the very best Japanese beef you can buy!

Myths & Facts: Japanese and American Wagyu

We've been writing extensively about A5 Wagyu to give you some background on the Japanese beef and its well-earned reputation for rich marbling. One thing that’s become increasingly evident in the course of our research and travels to Japan is the fact that there’s a scary amount of myths out there about A5 Wagyu from Japan.

So we thought we’d do some myth-busting.