Kobe Beef is not a breed, a region or a grade. It is a line in a set of rules kept by the Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association, and that line is Article 21. To read it you first have to read Article 20, because Article 21 does not describe an animal at all. It describes a subset of the animals Article 20 has already defined.
Article 20 defines Tajima-gyu, and Article 21 only narrows it
Article 20 sets out what counts as Tajima-gyu, and it is a chain of conditions about geography and paperwork rather than about taste. The animal must descend from a line mated across the generations only to bulls owned by Hyogo Prefecture. From breeding through to shipment as beef cattle it must be kept and managed inside Hyogo by a producer registered with the association. It must be shipped to a meat centre inside Hyogo. It must be a female or a castrated male aged from 28 months to 60 months. And its yield and meat quality grades must be A or B at grade 2 or above. The same article permits the name Tajima Beef for the same animal.
Article 21 then says that Kobe Beef means those Tajima-gyu that are never-calved females or castrated males and that meet four further numbered items. Nothing in Article 21 repeats the Hyogo conditions, because Article 20 has already imposed them. An animal born outside Hyogo, or mated to a bull from outside the prefecture’s own herd, never reaches the second article to be tested against it.
The four items in Article 21 are numbered, and the third one holds both weights
| Item as the article numbers it | Condition as printed |
|---|---|
| 1. Yield and meat quality grade | A or B, grade 4 or above |
| 2. Marbling | BMS value No. 6 or above |
| 3. Carcass weight | Female 270 kg to 499.9 kg; castrated male 300 kg to 499.9 kg |
| 4. Other | Where the carcass carries a defect notation, a livestock consignee company entrusted by the association checks it and makes the Kobe Beef determination |
The third item is the one that splits by sex, and the fourth is procedure rather than measurement. The grade step between the two articles is the part that separates the names. Article 20 lets Tajima-gyu through at grade 2; Article 21 requires grade 4. So the difference between the two names is two grade steps, a marbling floor and a pair of weight brackets.
The association’s summary page prints a shorter list than its own regulation
The page the association uses to explain the standard in plain language gives four bullets: BMS of No. 6 or above, a yield grade of A or B, a carcass weight of 499.9 kg or less, and excellent fineness and firmness of the meat. Set that beside Article 21 and two things are missing and one is added. The minimum weights of 270 kg and 300 kg do not appear, so the summary reads as a ceiling with no floor. The grade 4 requirement does not appear either. And the fineness and firmness line, which is a judgement rather than a number, has no counterpart in the article.
Neither page cross-references the other, and the association does not say which is controlling. Anyone quoting a single figure for Kobe Beef is quoting from one of these two pages without the other.
Nine in ten certified Tajima-gyu now pass as Kobe Beef, against half in 2008
The association publishes two annual tables, one counting animals certified as Kobe Beef and one counting animals certified as Tajima-gyu, with a note that the first figure is contained in the second. Both run for seventeen fiscal years, from the year beginning April 2008 to the year beginning April 2024.
| Fiscal year beginning | Kobe Beef | Tajima-gyu |
|---|---|---|
| April 2008 | 2,955 | 5,727 |
| April 2014 | 5,077 | 6,983 |
| April 2020 | 6,120 | 6,790 |
| April 2023 | 6,846 | 7,425 |
| April 2024 | 6,820 | 7,330 |
Dividing one column by the other, which is my arithmetic and not the association’s, the Kobe Beef share was 51.6 per cent in the first year of the table and 93.0 per cent in the last. The year beginning April 2023 is the high point of both columns, and the following year is 26 head lower for Kobe Beef and 95 head lower for Tajima-gyu.
The association’s own FAQ rounds to figures the tables do not carry
On a separate page the association answers the question of how many animals go to market each year: about 7,500 head are shipped and certified as Tajima-gyu, and about 7,000 of those are certified as Kobe Beef. The last rows of the tables are 7,330 and 6,820. The two statements are not reconcilable as they stand, and the association does not date the FAQ figures or explain the gap. This article uses the tables, because they are dated by fiscal year and the FAQ is not.
The same FAQ carries the scarcity claim that underpins the price: Kobe Beef accounts for under about 0.2 per cent of the beef distributed and consumed in Japan. It also gives a number that explains the 499.9 kg ceiling. Tajima carcasses average around 420 kg, some 50 kg below the national average, and the association states that an animal grown too large loses the fine texture that the Tajima line is kept for.
The same article licenses four names for the same meat
Article 21 does not only define Kobe Beef; it also lists what the product may be called. The permitted names are Kobe Beef in Japanese, KOBE BEEF in roman letters, and two Japanese forms rendered here as Kobe meat and Kobe cattle. All four refer to the same certified carcass. Article 20 does the same for the parent category, allowing Tajima Beef alongside Tajima-gyu.
That matters for a menu. A restaurant writing Kobe cattle rather than Kobe Beef is not signalling a lesser product, because the association treats the names as interchangeable. What it cannot do is use any of them without the designation, which is the subject of the next section.
The trademarks arrived in two waves, 2001 and 2007
| Mark | Type | Registered | Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nojigiku crest | Figurative | 16 February 2001 | 4454128 |
| Bronze monument | Three-dimensional | 6 July 2001 | 4487460 |
| Kobe Beef | Word | 3 August 2007 | 5068214 |
| Kobe meat | Word | 3 August 2007 | 5068215 |
| Kobe cattle | Word | 3 August 2007 | 5068216 |
| Tajima Beef | Word | 12 October 2007 | 5083160 |
| Tajima cattle | Word | 12 October 2007 | 5083161 |
The crest is the nojigiku, the prefectural flower of Hyogo, which is why it and not a picture of an animal is the mark stamped on certified meat. The word marks came six years later, in the same year the association registered Kobe Beef as a regional collective trademark and put the whole chain, from breeding farms through wholesalers and retailers to restaurants, on a designated-and-registered basis.
Registration abroad came later still, and the association lists fourteen jurisdictions in a second table with five mark columns. The earliest date in each row runs: Korea August 2009, Taiwan May 2010, Hong Kong September 2011, China November 2012, Macau January 2013, Singapore September 2013, the United States August 2014, the European Union October 2014, Thailand March 2015, Vietnam December 2015, the Philippines June 2017, Russia October 2017, the United Arab Emirates May 2018 and Canada October 2018. Four of those rows do not carry one date across all five columns: Canada adds April 2019 for two marks, Thailand adds August 2016 and December 2017, Vietnam adds May 2016 and Russia adds November 2017. Three rows are incomplete rather than split: the United States and China carry entries in two columns each and Hong Kong in three, while the other eleven rows are filled across. Exports themselves began in February 2012, to Macau, which is to say after the Korean, Taiwanese and Hong Kong registrations and before the other eleven.
Every certified carcass carries four stamps and one numbered document
The physical paperwork is specific. A carcass authorised as Tajima-gyu is stamped in four places with the Tajima-gyu mark and issued with a Hyogo-produce Tajima-gyu certificate, one per carcass. A carcass authorised as Kobe Beef is stamped in four places with the Kobe Beef mark and issued with a Kobe Beef Certificate of Authenticity, again one per carcass. A shop entitled to sell it displays a membership certificate, a designation certificate and a cast bronze statue of an animal at the shopfront.
Behind that sits the individual animal. Each calf born to a designated breeding farm is entered in the cattle register and tagged with a ten-digit individual identification number, and the association’s Tajima-gyu pedigree system takes that number and returns the bloodline, the birthplace, the farms, the market and whether the animal was certified.
Twenty-eight months is the floor, and about thirty-two is the practice
Article 20 sets 28 months as the youngest an animal can be. The association’s own description of the process puts the working average at about 32 months: the breeding farm sells the calf at around eight to nine months, the fattening farm keeps it for roughly two years, and the carcass reaches the market at about 30 to 32 months of age. Tajima cattle are kept two to four months longer than ordinary Japanese Black cattle.
The feed is described as dry forage such as rice straw plus a compound feed blended from soy, corn, barley and wheat bran, with the association stating flatly that fresh grass is never given. On the folklore, the association is blunt: some smallholders may do something close to the beer and massage of the legend, but none of it is a standard, music has not been shown to affect meat quality, and massage is treated as stress reduction rather than as anything that changes the marbling.
Where beef is sold by the skewer rather than by the certificate is a different kind of market, and this site has looked at one of those in Kuromon Ichiba Market in Osaka.
Sources Checked
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — definition page carrying Articles 20 and 21 and the annual certification tables
Confirmed the Article 20 conditions of prefecture-owned sires across the generations, breeding to shipment inside Hyogo by registered producers, shipment to a meat centre inside Hyogo, an age of 28 to 60 months, female or castrated male, and yield and meat quality grades A or B at grade 2 or above; the Article 21 restriction to never-calved females and castrated males; the four numbered items of grade A or B at 4 or above, BMS No. 6 or above, carcass weight of 270 to 499.9 kg for a female and 300 to 499.9 kg for a castrated male in a single numbered item, and the fourth item covering a consignee check where a defect is noted; the permitted names under both articles; and the seventeen fiscal-year rows of both tables, including 2,955 and 5,727 for the year beginning April 2008, 5,077 and 6,983 for April 2014, 6,120 and 6,790 for April 2020, 6,846 and 7,425 for April 2023 and 6,820 and 7,330 for April 2024, with the note that the Kobe Beef figures are contained in the Tajima-gyu figures.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/about/definition.html
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — certification standard summary
Confirmed the four bullets of BMS No. 6 or above, yield grade A or B, carcass weight of 499.9 kg or less and excellent fineness and firmness; the absence of the minimum weights and of the grade 4 requirement from that list; the ten-digit individual identification number and entry in the cattle register; the minimum of 28 months and the stated average of about 32 months; the shipment of calves at about nine months; and the nojigiku crest stamped on certified meat.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/about/criteria.html
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — frequently asked questions
Confirmed the figures of about 7,500 head certified as Tajima-gyu and about 7,000 as Kobe Beef; the share of under about 0.2 per cent of Japanese beef distribution; the Tajima average carcass weight of about 420 kg and the stated gap of about 50 kg from the national average; the explanation of why an oversized carcass is excluded; the breeding and fattening split with calves sold at about eight to nine months and the carcass reaching market at about 30 to 32 months; the two to four months of extra rearing over ordinary Japanese Black cattle; the feed description and the statement that fresh grass is never given; the grading of carcasses by the Japan Meat Grading Association on five levels; the answers on music, beer and massage; the first export to Macau in February 2012; and the description of what the Tajima-gyu pedigree system returns from an individual identification number.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/faq/index.html
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — trademark registrations
Confirmed all seven Japanese registrations in the table above with their dates and numbers; that the nojigiku is the prefectural flower of Hyogo; the fourteen overseas rows and their five mark columns, with the earliest date in each row as listed above, the later dates in the Canadian, Thai, Vietnamese and Russian rows, and the incomplete United States, China and Hong Kong rows.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/about/trademark.html
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — certification stamps and certificates
Confirmed the four stamps applied to a Tajima-gyu carcass and to a Kobe Beef carcass, and the per-carcass Hyogo-produce Tajima-gyu certificate and Kobe Beef Certificate of Authenticity.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/certification/index.html
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — designated shops
Confirmed the regional collective trademark registration in 2007, the designated-and-registered chain from breeding farms through wholesalers and retailers to restaurants, and the membership certificate, designation certificate and bronze statue displayed at shopfronts.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/merchant/about.html
Kobe Meat Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association — about the council
Confirmed the founding of the association in 1983 and its three stated aims of defining Kobe Beef and issuing the certificate, designating retailers and producers, and placing a bronze monument at designated shops.
https://www.kobe-niku.jp/contents/council/index.html
Last updated: September 2026
