It's Not Mykonos' Fault: Kobe Beef Costs 900 Euros Per 1,5 Kilo

There've been a lot of negative comments lately about the Mykonos shops and especially the exorbitant prices. When a Ricky Hatton, boxing legend from Manchester decided to enjoy his vacation in Mykonos, Greece, he did not expect to pay the incredible sum of 920 euros for a steak.

Of course, a Japanese Kobe Rib-eye steak isn't just a piece of meat. However, had it been a normal cow steak, he might have bought the whole flock for this price.

Kobe beef is Wagyu beef from the Tajima strain of Japanese Black cattle. Cattle were brought from China to Japan at about the same time as the cultivation of rice, in the second century CE, in the Yayoi period. It took its name from the words "Wa" meaning "Japanese" and "gyu" meaning "beef," while the area where the animal is bread is added to the name every time. The most popular is that of the Kobe area, in Japan's Hyōgo Prefecture.

To take the name Kobe, the meat has to fulfill the following conditions, according to Wikipedia:

• Farm feeding in Hyōgo Prefecture
• Tajima cattle born in Hyōgo Prefecture
• Processed at slaughterhouses in Kobe, Sanda, Kakogawa, Nishinomiya, or Himeji in Hyōgo Prefecture
• Bullock (steer or castrated bull)
• Meat quality score of 4 or 5
• Marbling ratio, called BMS, of level 6 and above
• Gross weight of beef from one animal is 470 kg or less.

Up until 2012, someone would have to travel to Japan to try Kobe beef, due to a ban on the import of all Japanese beef. When the ban was relaxed in August 2012, Kobe beef was imported to several markets, and it reached Greece in 2015. More specifically, the first Kobe beef in Greece was imported in Mykonos.

Apparently, breeders take care of the cattle, so that they have high-fat ratio and their meat becomes soft. They particularly massage them and they even give them beer or sake to increase their appetite.

According to the Guardian, the annual production of Kobe is no more than 3.000 animals, with the kilo being sold at Harrods in 2018 at 625 pounds (about 700 euros). So what Ricky Hatton paid in Mykonos is considered as normal.