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TOKYO-X (Tokyo's new brand pork booming among safety-conscious Japanese gourmets)

Filmed on：2002-10-18

It has been a year since the first BSE-infected cattle were in the news in Japan, and a series of scandals, involving large food companies that put labels with a false place of production on their products, have shaken Japanese consumer confidence. Because of this, consumers are now much more sensitive about the safety of food as well as transparency of production and distribution procedures.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Livestock Experiment Station started working to develop a new breed of pig with high quality meat in 1990 and spent seven years on the development of "TOKYO X". This pig combines the bloodlines of the Duroc (USA), Berkshire (UK), and Beijing black pig (China). A group of nine stockbreeders in Tokyo, collectively known as "Tokyo SaBAQ Stock Farm", raised the pigs successfully. "SaBAQ" stands for Safety, Biotics, Animal welfare, and Quality, the four main pillars of their philosophy of production.

With its first appearance on the market in 1997, "TOKYO X" swiftly met the taste demands of urban epicures and has sold very well among consumers who care about quality. Not only its striking name but also its deeply-marbled meat, seldom seen in pork, attracts attention. In order to produce this marbled meat, the amount of red meat needs to be reduced and that of fat increased. Although this is inefficient in terms of production, stockbreeders now place higher priority on quality and safety of products than on efficiency. At present, approx. 5,000 "TOKYO X" pigs are bred annually and TMLES is aiming for 10,000 in the FY2004. "X" comes from the word "crossbreed", and also carries the developers' wish that this new breed of pig will live up to its "unknown" potential.

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