TOKYO -- Japanese gyudon beef bowl chain operator Yoshinoya Holdings is making a push into the ostrich business, creating a skin care line using the bird's oil and putting its meat on the menu at restaurants in limited quantities, eyeing the efficient-to-raise animals as a future profit source.
"We will establish ostrich as an option that can bring wellness both to people and to Earth," said Yoshinoya Holdings President Yasutaka Kawamura at a press conference to announce the company's new ostrich-related ventures in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Ostrich oil has a fatty acid composition close to that of human skin, and its beauty-enhancing ingredients penetrate the skin more easily than vegetable-based oils, the company said, making it ideal for its new line of cosmetics.
Prices range from 5,720 yen to 15,400 yen ($40 to $106) for a booster oil used before applying facial lotion, and a beauty cream is priced at 16,500 yen. The products went on sale through various online retailers in addition to Yoshinoya's website from Wednesday.
Though ostrich oil cosmetics and beef bowls might seem like a mismatch at first glance, the new business stems from a concern about future food shortages, triggered by Yoshinoya's expansion into China.
The company's first full-fledged foray into that highly populous country, in Shanghai around 2000, made it realize that continuing to serve beef bowls to so many people could someday become difficult. Those fears have become a reality in the form of soaring beef prices due to increased consumption in emerging markets and developing countries.
As of early August, the Japanese wholesale price of frozen U.S. beef belly used in gyudon was 1,450 yen to 1,530 yen per kilogram, up about 80% on the year.
U.S. beef prices are expected to remain high for the time being as the production cycle -- where the number of cattle naturally increases and decreases -- is in a declining phase. Yoshinoya was forced to raise gyudon prices in late July.
Global meat consumption in 2033 is expected to reach about 390 million tonnes, up 12% from the average for 2021 to 2023, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Ostriches have a higher feed efficiency than cows and pigs, requiring just 30% to 40% of the feed needed to produce cows, according to Yoshinoya. Cows need large amounts of both feed and water, and they release large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas.
Ostriches, meanwhile, are said to lack the microorganisms in their digestive tracts that create methane, resulting in less than half the methane emissions of cows. They have been attracting attention in the global restaurant industry as a promising solution to food shortage problems.
Yoshinoya Holdings operates an ostrich farm in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. (Photo obtained by Nikkei)
Yoshinoya entered the ostrich farming business in 2015 by purchasing an ostrich farm in Ibaraki prefecture, which is northeast of Tokyo.
In 2017, the company established a unit that would later become Speedia, which handles ostrich farming and is the name brand for its skin care products. It currently has 3.6 hectares of farmland and raises 500 ostriches, making it one of the largest such operations in Japan.
The Japanese market is still in its infancy. The number of ostriches being raised in Japan is at most 5,000, according to Yoshinoya and other sources. Domestic consumption is low -- less than 1% of the amount of chicken or beef consumed.
"We have not yet reached a level where we can run the business as a livestock one," Kawamura said. Since it is difficult to make a profit from the meat alone, the company came up with a model to also develop cosmetics that use ostrich oil, a by-product.
In conjunction with the cosmetics sales, Yoshinoya restaurants started selling set meals of ostrich bowls with soup for 1,683 yen in a limited run of 60,000 servings at about 400 locations nationwide from Wednesday.