Sending a cow & salmon to Japan

Tetsugen

I stayed with a very nice family in Japan for the majority of February. The father of the household has an unnatural addiction to steak and now that I'm back in Canada would like to send him an ample supply. Google yielded nothing except for regulations on sending a whole cow, I just want to send strips of one.

Question - How do I send smoked salmon and several pounds of steaks to my host family in Japan, and are there any problems that might arise from customs on their side ?

Any help is appreciated.

Gabriel_Pitt

Tetsugen wrote: »

Question - How do I send smoked salmon and several pounds of steaks to my host family in Japan?

You don't.

Although I suppose that hypothetically, it is possible. If you pack it in an insulated container with cold packs, and then ship it overnight, that will ensure the meat doesn't spoil before it gets to your host family, probably. However, overnight shipping something of that size, that weighs several pounds, is going to be ridiculously expensive, like $350+ (just guessing from my own experience with fast shipping to Japan), but I couldn't even find an option for that on the Canada Post website. So that means your package will be 3-5 days in transit, and I sure wouldn't be inclined to eat meat that had spent that long out of the fridge.

Also, meat has to pass through inspection at the quarantine counter if you bring it into the country with you on a plane, so I would expect that it would be inspected if entering through the mail. I know that a big, insulated, heavy package would be inspected regardless.

Hlubocky

It would probably be much easier for you to buy from an online store in Japan that delivers than for you to try and pack and ship it yourself.

falsedef

Jerky

Trentus

Hlubocky wrote: »

It would probably be much easier for you to buy from an online store in Japan that delivers than for you to try and pack and ship it yourself.

Beef is ridiculously expensive over in Japan. Doubly so for good beef.

Szechuanosaurus

Trentus wrote: »

Hlubocky wrote: »

It would probably be much easier for you to buy from an online store in Japan that delivers than for you to try and pack and ship it yourself.

Beef is ridiculously expensive over in Japan. Doubly so for good beef.

Guess why.

Because they import most it from foreign producers and it costs a lot to ship it there without spoiling whilst the stuff produced locally is typically high cost stuff like Kobe beef due to limited grazing land on the island

Gabriel_Pitt

It's not ridiculously expensive, just more expensive than what people stateside would be used to, unless you're talking about Kobe beef, which is ridiculously over-priced, merely for name recognition. Hell, where is your host family at? I'll go to the Brazilian market down the street, buy some nice, big steaks for a lot better deal than you get at Japanese markets, and hand deliver them to your host family (given that they're somewhere easily reached in Shiga prefecture), and I'll do it for a lot less than what the post office would charge.

Jobe

You could do jerky. Everyone likes Jerky. Also, if you cook the steak you might be able to use one of those vacume packs and I don't think it will spoil, not completely sure on that though. Like it was said though, you might want to go through a butcher/company already based in Japan if you want freshness. It is bound to be cheaper then mailing it. Also, I'm not sure how well sending meat would go with customs, I'm not exactly up on those rules.

dispatch.o

Dry Ice. You can buy single-use coolers made out of two large pieces of insulation (foam or otherwise) and tape the lid on tightly with a couple of bricks of dry ice inside. Make sure the meat is in thick vacuum style freezer bags though.

This is what most places that do mail-order meat do, and it comes out of the whole process pretty darn well as long as the meat was flash frozen in the first place and packaged correctly.

If you wanted to do it easier, order some meat from Omaha Steaks and re-label the box and send it on out. The dry ice keeps it decent for damn near two weeks.

Omaha Meat

They're overpriced, but it's my only suggestion for going about it pain-free if you really want to ship it.

Edit:

How they ship it. Good picture on how they pack it just for reference if you want to do it yourself.

Wulf

Also, as part of a company that ships (edible) products overseas, you are without a doubt going to have to have them get an import permit to get that stuff through customs. Our stuff contains traces of animal proteins (non-neurological material mind you) and even we can't get it through reliably, even though its going into a closed research environment, without our customer getting those permits. That being said, I don't think those are in any way cheap or easy for your average layperson to get. Though you could get lucky and get an inspector that is having a really good day/ being fired and doesn't care about it. Your milage will vary, but thats what I've seen from a first hand perspective.

Edit: Japan doubly so, as they are super paranoid about this sort of thing lately.

Reiten

Given the problems with mad cow in both Canada and the US, I'm reasonably certain that you can't ship animal proteins (jerky included) to Japan legally. If you can, you'll need special permits. I know you're not supposed to bring it there in your luggage right now as presents.

EggyToast

Yeah, I'd be very surprised if Japan lifted their limits/bans on importing any animal products from the US.

Zombiemambo

First of all, props for doing that. Quite a nice thing to do for someone.

Like people said before, try going through a Japanese company. It will cost more for the beef, but I don't think your host family would like receiving rotting meat.

Gabriel_Pitt

You can get smoked salmon in Japan via Costco's The Flying Pig.

The closest thing I could find to steak was Veal cutlets from The Foreign Buyers' Club. However, amazon.co.jp actually seems to have a listing or two for actual meat ステーキ　so you might be able to go that route.