Mad Cow Beef Ban Hitting Home for Japanese in OC
By YOKO ITO-PETERSON
On a recent shopping trip to a nearby Japanese grocery shop, Irvine housewife Junko Ikuma realized her family’s favorite items were missing from the shelf.
“Half of the made-in-Japan cup ramen section was replaced with drinks,” Ikuma said.
And that’s not all. The store’s selection of curry mixes wasn’t what it used to be, according to Ikuma.
Local Japanese shops and their customers are feeling the pinch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s September ban on imports of Japanese beef and beef byproducts. The reason: an outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan. A third case of the disease was confirmed near Tokyo this month.
But ramen noodles and curry mixes? The Japanese staples were included in the ban because they contain some beef byproducts. Housewife Ikuma said the two items are “musts” and always are on her shopping list whenever she goes to a Japanese grocery shop.
Fallout from the ban is hitting home within Orange Co-unty’s sizable Jap-anese community. For Japanese-Amer-icans and expatriates here, a supply line from their homeland has been cut off.
Local grocers said they have no idea when the ban will be lifted. But the situation is coming to a head, they said.
“The items imported before the embargo are low on inventory,” said Kazuo Takeda, president of Ebisu Super Market in Fountain Valley. “I cannot do anything.”
A spokeswoman for one Southland Japanese supermarket chain said she is looking for Korean noodles that can satisfy “picky” Japanese consumers.
Trouble is, she said, “Generally speaking, the Japanese public love noodles made in Japan.”
The Japanese even shun noodles from Irvine-based Maru-chan Inc., a Japanese company that produces noodles here aimed at U.S. consumers, the spokeswoman said.
Maruchan, a unit of Japan’s Toyo Suisan Kaisha Ltd., isn’t being impacted by the ban since it uses U.S. materials to make its products in Irvine, said Tom Yoshimura, general sales manager.
Like other Japanese here, though, Yoshimura said the ban has come into play at his house. He said his wife grabbed 10 bars of curry mix at a bargain price right after the ban was put in place.
“Curry is our staple dish, and my three children love it,” he said.
Gardena-based Nissin Foods USA, a unit of Tokyo’s Nisshin Food Products Co. and a key rival of Maruchan, downplayed the ban’s impact on its business as well. The company also makes noodles from domestic materials. Together, the two companies dominate the U.S. market, with an estimated 90% share, according to Yoshimura.
Other Japanese food makers are modifying their products destined for the U.S., replacing animal-based ingredients with substitutes.
Garden Grove-based House Foods America Corp. stopped importing Vermont Curry bars from its parent company, Japan’s House Foods Corp. in September because the bars contained fat from Japanese cattle. It now is replacing the animal fat with vegetable oil.
S & B; International of Torrance, a unit of Japan’s S & B; Foods Inc., has changed the ingredients in its Golden Curry bars to a substitute. Before the ban, S & B; exported 4.5 million bars of instant curry mix a year to the U.S.
