JAKARTA - If you order a box of frozen Kobe beef chromets from home-run beef stores in Takasago City in Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, it will take up to 30 years before you receive the order. Yes, thirty years.
Founded in 1926, kickya sold meat products from Hyogo Prefecture, including Kobe's beef, for decades before adding beef chromets to the shelves in the years following World War II.
However, it was only in the early 2000s that the potatoes and fried beef became a sensation on the internet, resulting in buyers having to wait very long.
The 'Extreme Kroket' that is highly coveted is one of the four types of Kobe beef chromet available on koperya. Can't wait three decades? Kobe's Premier Cow Kroket shop currently has a better four-year waiting list.
"We started selling our products through online shopping in 1999," said Shigeru Nitta, the owner of third generation
"At that time, we offered Extreme Croquettes a trial," he said.
Growing up in Hyogo, Nitta has been visiting local farms and beef auctions with her father since she was young.
He took over the shop from his father in 1994 when he was 30.
After experimenting with e-commerce for several years, he realized customers were hesitant to pay a large amount of beef online.
That's when he made a bold decision.
"We sell Croquette Extreme at a price of 270 Japanese yen (1.8 US dollars) per fruit. The beef in it alone costs around 400 Japanese yen (2.7 US dollars) per piece," said Nitta.
"We make affordable and delicious chromets that show our store concept, as a strategy for customers to enjoy chromets and then hope they will buy our Kobe beef after the first experiment," he explained.
To limit financial losses in the early days, wayya only produces 200 chromets in her own kitchen next to her shop every week.
"We sell beef that is kept by people we know. Our store only sells meat produced in Hyogo Prefecture, whether it's Kobe beef, Kobe pork, or Tajima chicken. This has been the style of this shop since before I became the owner," said Nita.
The cheap price label from Extreme Croquettes contradicts the quality of the ingredients. They are made fresh every day without preservatives. The ingredients include three-year-old female Kobe's A5 beef, as well as potatoes sourced from local farms.
Nitta said he had encouraged farms to use cow droppings to grow potatoes. The potato stems will then be fed to the cows, creating cycles.
Finally, its unique concept caught the attention of the people and the media. When reports about hisqroket came out in the early 2000s, their popularity skyrocketed.
"We stopped selling it in 2016 because the waiting time was more than 14 years. We were thinking of stopping orders, but we got a lot of calls asking to keep offering them," Nitta said.
Perhatiya kembali menerima persanan kroket ini pada tahun 2017, tetapi menaikkan harganya.
"At that time, we raised the price to 500 Japanese yen (3.4 US dollars) - 540 Japanese yen (3.7 US dollars) with a consumption tax. But since Kobe's beef export started, beef prices have doubled, so the fact that chromet production has made the deficit unchanged," said Nitta.
Production is also increased from 200 chromets per week to 200 chromets per day.
"In fact, Croquette's Extreme is much more popular than other products," Nitta laughed at, laughing at his own losing business idea.
"We heard that we had to hire more people and make the chromet faster, but I don't think any shop owners hire more employees and produce more to produce more deficits. I feel sorry for making them wait. I want to make the chromet fast and send it as soon as possible, but if I do, the store will go bankrupt," he explained.
Fortunately, Nitta said that about half of the people who tried the chromet ended up ordering Kobe's beef, so this is a good marketing strategy.
Each box of Extreme Croquettes, which consists of five, sells for 2,700 Japanese yen ($18.40).
The store sends regular newsletters to customers waiting to update the latest delivery forecasts.
A week before delivery date, the store will confirm deliveries with patient customers once again.
"Of course, some people have changed their email addresses. For those people, we called them directly and told them the delivery date. They can change their own addresses through our website or when we call them, they can tell us," said Nitta.
Customers who received chromet today ordered about 10 years ago.
Having a list of unfavorable orders for 30 years to fulfill can be stressful, especially as Kobe's beef prices and workforce continue to increase.
But something more important has prompted Nitta to move forward.
"When I started selling chromets on the internet, I got a lot of orders from remote remote islands. Most of them have heard of Kobe's beef on TV but never had it because they have to go to the city if they want to try it. I realized that there were so many people who had never eaten Kobe's beef," he said.
"Therefore, I continue to offer chromets as an experiment and get more orders for Kobe beef if they like it. That's why I started it, so I don't really care if it's a deficit," Nitta said.
One of the most memorable moments was when they got orders from a cancer patient who was going to undergo surgery while waiting for their Extreme Croquettes.
"I heard our chromet is the patient's motivation to undergo surgery. That's what surprised me the most," said Nitta.
Patients survived and have made many orders since then.
Nitta received a call from a patient who told him "I hope to live a long time without a cancer recurrence" after tasting his chromet.
"I still remember that. I was touched by that comment," said Nitta.
For the future, the 58-year-old owners said they were thinking about expanding.
"I want to make a small place where people can eat a little, maybe. Our shop at Kobe is a tourist spot," he explained.
"But if we become a restaurant, our neighboring restaurant can be disrupted because we also provide meat for them," concluded Nitta.
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