At the risk of outing myself as a philistine, if it's that hard to tell the difference between the real thing and the fakes does it really matter?
Eh. If you are ordering Kobe beef but do not have the palette to discern between Kobe and Wagyu, then maybe yer being a schmuck and need to be taken down a peg? Those who truly know and can appreciate Kobe beef know where to get it, and when they get the real thing. Other people with more money than taste get taken for a ride. I'm OK with that, actually.
What? No. That's awful. That's a swindle. That's like car repair places taking advantage of people who don't know much about cars or financial institutions who take advantage of people who don't understand money. Just because a person doesn't know better, it doesn't mean it's alright to take advantage of them. If someone wants to have the experience of real kobe beef and is willing to pay the money for it, they deserve that real kobe beef, sophisticated palette or no.
This is your central presumption, but I believe it is wrong. It is a uniquely American way to view the world: I should be able to do/get anything I can pay for. No, in fact, you shouldn't. There should be things that money can't buy. The simple possession of money should not be the sole arbiter of taste and judgement. Case in point: I have a client in Australia who runs an organic sheep and beef farm, based off the Polyface Farms model. It is hugely successful. The finest restaurants in Sydney buy from them because their meat is simply the best. They do not ship. They do not sell retail. They sell only fresh product, locally, to people who know quality when they taste it. Period. Raising Kobe beef can be seen as an art. Very few people do it, and those who do are very good at it. It is as hand crafted as a piece of meat can be. It is the finest there is, by several measures. Therefore it is rare, and should only be available to those who can actually appreciate the artistry of it. Otherwise, it has been wasted. The animal has been wasted. The farmer that applied all his skills and care to make the finest meat; his skills have been wasted. Things like Kobe beef are crafted for the most educated palette, and to sell it to someone else is to completely dishonor the artist who created it, their skills, and their passions. If someone wants to have the experience of real kobe beef and is willing to pay the money for it, they deserve that real kobe beef, sophisticated palette or no.
One, you can't deny that what you stated before is still a swindle. Selling something to someone that is a lie, to bilk them out of their money, is flat out wrong. Period. If someone pays good money for Kobe beef and expect that Kobe beef, they better get Kobe beef. Two, your friends in Australia do have some right to decide who they do and don't sell their products to, as a business partnership. Selling to companies that can bring the absolute best out of their product is good for their reputation. The business isn't the end user, which brings me to point number three. Three, deciding which end users get to have your product is elitist and shitty, with a few exceptions. For example, restricting super high end performance vehicles to people with racing licenses makes sense for the sake of safety. If someone is excited about the idea of Kobe beef and is willing to spend crazy amounts of money for something that they're gonna just poop out later, chances are they already have an appreciation for food. If they didn't, they wouldn't spend that kind of money. The whole argument is a bit silly anyway, because if Bill Gates doesn't have a sophisticated pallete but still wanted Kobe beef, no one would tell him "no" because of his status. If you as a chef/restaurant owner/etc. really cared about your food, and customers are willing to pay good money, you'd make it a fucking experience for them whatever way possible. That should include educating people with "unsophisticated palletes" so that they can better appreciate their meal. I mean, shit, I don't know shit about visual art except for what I see in advertisements and comic books, but when I go to an art museum for a tour theirs always those audio devices and plaques that explain why each piece is significant and beautiful. Wine tastings, brewery tours, hell, even trade shows, when people really care about their products they're more than happy to share what makes them wonderful and if they really and truly care, they're not gonna bilk their customers and they're not gonna turn people away just because they think they "wouldn't get it." That's not up to the businessman to decide. That's up to the consumer.
I'm a bit torn on this issue. I'm somewhat agreed that if you pay for something that you don't know what it is, you deserve what you get. On the other hand, more to your point, there's also a safety issue about this as well. I found this article-The New Bait and Switch on Seafood that describes the seafood fraud more in depth. She describes the types of fraud in levels from most benign to most dangerous. When it gets to the level that people can die from the fraud, it's pretty severe. In this case, toxic puffer fish was substituted for monkfish and caused two people to nearly die.After two Chicago diners nearly died from bad fish in 2007, FDA investigators used forensic DNA barcoding to discover that the supposed monkfish on menus was actually the highly toxic puffer fish, resulting in the recall of nearly 300 cases of seafood.
Meh. Maybe. I honestly don't really care. At the echelon of society who can afford and pay for Kobe beef, an extra $20-$30/steak doesn't even register on their radar. When you order a $90 steak, and a $280 bottle of wine, I honestly couldn't give a shit if you overpaid a couple of bucks. Rich people do this shit constantly. It's what keeps their money flowing into the economy. Francois Hollande's $11,000 monthly haircut? Is it worth it? No. But he pays it anyway. Giving $1.2m to the "Church" of Scientology so Xenu will teleport you to another planet, or some shit? Total bullshit. But rich people pay for it. So... back to my point... so what if a rich person pays $90 for Kobe beef, but can't tell the difference between the Wagyu they actually got, and the Kobe they paid for? Your passionate belief that names mean something and have some intrinsic value is, frankly, adorable. Hold on to that! And don't ever work in a restaurant. You'll find out that names mean very little, when it comes down to the food on your plate. The only valuable measure is, "Am I happy I paid $90 for this steak?" That is the only relevant issue. If this fantasy of the "value of a name" is that important to you, stay far away from the practical side of the food industry, then. As this article points out, no matter what you buy - beef, cheese, wine, olive oil - you rarely get what is on the label, due to many factors. It is the fact of industrial food production. Be good with it, or not, but taking the stance "you should get what you ordered in the restaurant" was unattainable 50 years ago, and is only more true today. One, you can't deny that what you stated before is still a swindle. Selling something to someone that is a lie, to bilk them out of their money, is flat out wrong.
If someone pays good money for Kobe beef and expect that Kobe beef, they better get Kobe beef.
The only problem with that is what is "Kobe beef" who gets to define what is and isnt Kobe. Should there be a 3rd party org taking a 20-30% cut to allow producers to call something Kobe? Some would argue yes, others No. My biggest problem with this is not so much that there isn't a regulator its that shitty knockoffs drive the real stuff out of existence. Its really hard to sell 100% virgin olive oil when the guy next door is selling a 50/50 mix with vegetable oil and still calling it 100% virgin. Kobe beef is a little different because the term doesn't mean anything its like "Naturaly nested", environmentally friendly or any of the other BS terms that's are put on packages. Im happy to pay 8-10$ a bottle for my California olive oil because I know its the real deal and i don't have to worry about whats in it because I'm paying for that extra QC. 2x as much for my unfiltered Washington wildflower honey (because I know its not laced with Chinese shit) but if something happened in the regulations and both were allowed to be laced with fake stuff I would pay significantly less because there would no longer be a quality guarantee. If it was really important id do research and find a reputable brand but im not sure if reputable brands would really be able to survive in that environment so i wouldn't have much choice.