Today was farm tour day! We traveled three hours north of Tokyo to visit a Wagyu beef farm, dairy farm, tomato farm, and strawberry farm. The weather was quite cold hovering around 32°. It even snowed some while we were at the beef and dairy farms.
The continuing theme we got from all of these farmers was their focus on the consumer's needs. They will always produce what the consumer wants. The second was that they focus on premium products, such as, high quality and high fat Wagyu Beef, that also come with premium prices. They can charge the equivalent of $26 per gallon of milk because the dairy cows that produce it eat only non-gmo feed and apparently consumers want that and will pay for it. We taste tested the tomatoes and strawberries and my goodness, the strawberries were amazing! Strawberry season is from September to March and are grown inside greenhouses. They focus on high quality, perfect taste, and uniformed size and consumers are willing to pay around $12 for six strawberries. In Japan, they live very simply with few material goods which allows them more disposable income that they spend in consumable goods like food. Their mentality is very different from Americans who demand cheap and fast food products and spend more money on stuff. Some photos for your pleasure.
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