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. It's called Zenkoku Wagyu Noryku Kyoshin-kai (全国和牛能力共進会) but it's known also as "The Wagyu Olympics". There are 11 prize categories, one of the more interesting of which measures the quality of the fats (looking for things like the health-promoting and umami-generating oleic acid). There's also an overall winner, based on the average of scores across the 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 one of the very best Japanese beef you can buy!