Rocking 711 Ranch’s Wagyu Beef “Sister Company” Wagyuru Pitches Wagyu at the Texas Restaurant Association Marketplace Event
On July 14th and 15th, Wagyuru, Rocking 711 Ranch’s sister company that sells its Wagyu beef, pitched its Wagyu beef at the Texas Restaurant Association’s “2019 TRA Marketplace” event, which is attended by thousands of restaurateurs, chefs, and industry managers and executives. We found the interest in Wagyu beef to be far greater than we had imagined!
Jason McConniel, chef, rancher and fellow Wagyu breeder, did an outstanding job serving up 100% fullblood Wagyu Sirloin Cap, also known as Picanha as well as Culotte. Interest was high and our Wagyuru booth, while small, was one of the most popular and “talked about” booths at the event! There was a continuous line of attendees waiting to sample Wagyu beef. Many were chefs, ranging from students at the Culinary Institute Lenotre up through some of Houston’s top chefs, as well as restaurant owners, food service industry managers and executives. We were super pleased and honored to have been able to show the deliciousness of Wagyu beef to many hundreds of people, a good many of which experienced the taste of Wagyu beef for the first time!
We were surprised by the huge interest, and we were not prepared for the overwhelming reception we received! All day long for two days there was a line of people in front of our booth waiting for a taste! Without exception the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. As we watched the reaction from those who sampled the product, we heard terms and phrases such as “amazing”, “wow”, “incredible”, “that’s the best beef I’ve ever tasted”, etc. Even some top chefs with significant experience with Wagyu beef products proclaimed that the product was very good. We put smiles on the faces of the many hundreds of people that sampled our Wagyu beef! It was an outstanding opportunity to educate these food industry professionals on the quality of Wagyu beef!
The lines were often long to sample the product, but those who waited in line for sometimes as long as 10 to 15 minutes usually had a smile on their face when they finally got to sample our Wagyu beef! And lots of our visitors were taking pictures or video of our booth and the Wagyu product, and of their friends’ reactions to tasting our Wagyu beef. We had visitors from many areas of the food industry, and widely varying backgrounds. We had several owners of Japanese restaurants visit and sample the product, and all were impressed. Of particular interest, we had two Japanese natives originally from Kobe, Japan, home of the famed “Kobe Beef”, sample the beef and proclaim afterward that it was “very good”!
Some of Houston’s top chefs were at the event and stopped by the Wagyuru booth, including event keynote speaker Chris Shepherd, recently named by the prestigious Rob Report as the Top Chef In The World!
Jason McConniel, chef, rancher, fellow Wagyu breeder, and a customer, shows his obvious pleasure at pleasantly surprising his friend, executive chef Jonathan Jones, a 30+ year veteran on the Houston restaurant scene, with the taste of our 100% fullblood Wagyu beef! Jonathan proclaimed it to be “very good”, which is a high compliment coming from someone of his experience!
We started out the first day serving samples of 100% fullblood Wagyu Sirloin Cap, also known as Picanha in Brazil and Culotte in France. Jason intended to serve a “dressed” sample that included a thinly sliced beef sample atop a thin slice of baguette toasted in Wagyu fat, dressed with a garlic aioli sauce, parsley and Peppadew pepper relish. But we quickly found out that many of these industry professionals preferred to sample the beef “straight up”, sometimes even asking for “no salt”. And of course Jason complied with their wishes. The feedback following tasting was overwhelmingly positive in all cases!
The second day, realizing we could not keep up with demand, we rolled out a simultaneous Wagyu slider offering, requiring Jim Long don an apron and change from his ranching hat to his grilling hat on short notice!
And Jim might have overcooked a few of the sliders, but even the overcooked sliders were juicy and tender and nobody seemed to mind! Word had spread from the first day, and the lines became even longer on the second day, even though we were serving twice as fast!
Wagyuru’s Caleb Yowell answered questions about Wagyuru, Wagyu beef, the Wagyu cattle breed, and the differences between the terms Wagyu, Kobe and Akaushi. We were really surprised by the breadth and intensity of the interest in Wagyu!
Our first forey into the “convention scene” at the 2019 TRA Marketplace event proved to be a great way to show food industry professionals the outstanding quality of Wagyu beef in general, and our Wagyu beef in particular. We intend to be back next year, perhaps with a bigger booth and more serving capacity!
Click on the video below to see a short compilation of informal video clips taken with a phone camera that show some of the scenes, expressions and reactions at the Wagyuru booth at the 2019 TRA Marketplace event!
