Rice a Sticking Point in Sushi Export Plan

Pizza maker Jim Scudder wants to crack the international marketplace, even if his notion sounds almost as crazy as exporting his Escondido pizzas to, say, Italy.

From his food processing plant in North County, next to a carpet store and across the railroad tracks from a cattle slaughterhouse, Scudder wants to produce 1 1/2 tons of sushi every day for export to--of all places--Japan.

The only thing standing in his way is the Japanese government, which strictly prohibits the importation of rice.

Scudder says he already has a client in the wings: Sushi Boy, a chain of 44 restaurants in southern Japan noted for its conveyor-belt system of serving sushi to customers.

The Japanese company wants to buy its sushi from the United States because rice and fish are cheaper here. Scudder would produce 30,000 pieces of sushi daily at his small food factory, to be quick-frozen and flown to Japan, ready to be defrosted and served to Japanese consumers.

Is Japan ready for quick-frozen sushi from America?

“If you don’t do it right, you end up with garbage,” said Scudder, who is president of Gourmet Quality Foods.

“But I will freeze it with liquid nitrogen. It’s absolutely state-of-the-art. When you spray sushi with liquid nitrogen, it’s at 270 degrees below zero, just that fast, and it don’t change nothin’ with the sushi.”

If the Japanese marketplace embraces made-in-America sushi, Scudder would gear up to make 100,000 or more pieces daily, and eventually add 20 workers to his pizza production crew of 60.

Getting his rice from California growers, or fish from San Diego fishermen, would be a snap for Scudder. And it wouldn’t be a trick, either, making the traditionally handmade sushi in mass-production fashion with an automated assembly line that would make up in efficiency what it would lack in cultural romance.

But the Sushi Boy chain must first persuade its own government that sushi is not just so much rice and fish, but processed food that is eligible for import. There are two primary criteria: that the rice make up no more than 80% of the product and that the rice and the other ingredients not be separable.

Already, a Los Angeles firm, California Rice Center, has produced about 1,000 pieces of sushi for Sushi Boy to see if it can pass Japanese muster. The sushi arrived Wednesday in Japan--where it now is stored in freezers while Japanese officials decide whether it should be an allowable import.

Customs officials in Japan “are kind of nervous,” said Hiroko Furukawa, a spokeswoman for a Sushi Boy executive. “You know the Japanese bureaucrats. They are very cautious.”

Her company, Furukawa said, thinks the debate over whether to allow imported sushi “is nonsense.”

“Sushi is quite expensive in Japan,” she said. “It is a treat. If you could eat it at a fast-food price, who would object?”

Because the imported sushi will cost only about half the price of fresh sushi prepared by chefs, Sushi Boy executives hope it will win widespread acceptance from cost-conscious consumers. There may even be an element of chic to the frozen, mass-produced American product.

But Japanese politicians--not unconscious of the voting power of Japanese rice growers--have strongly objected to the importation of foreign rice, much to the consternation of American rice growers.

As of Thursday, Japanese customs officials hadn’t decided whether to allow the importation of sushi, said a spokesman for the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles.

“The issue,” the spokesman said, “is whether the product will be considered rice or prepared food.”

Passing that test will be a tough nut to crack, Scudder concedes.

Previously, Scudder manufactured frozen rice-and-beef bowls and similar food products for export to Japan for institutional customers. With each attempt, he said, the door was slammed shut on him at the customs office.

The meat, he said he was told, was easily separated from the rice.

“They said you could separate the rice from the meat when you put the product on a vibrating screen,” Scudder said. “Well, everything is separable if it’s not fused. Give me a screwdriver, and I’ll separate a car.”

So for now, Scudder is biding his time. If the initial test samples of sushi from California Rice Center get past customs, Sushi Boy will turn to the Los Angeles sushi maker for its first few months of sushi, Furukawa said.

If the California sushi catches on, Furukawa said, Scudder will get the nod for more production.

Scudder isn’t holding his breath at the thought of this potential marketplace.

“I’ve been a millionaire a million times over in my mind,” he said. “I’ve had great ideas that should have gone to the moon, only for them to end up in the toilet. And here’s another great idea.

“If it works, great. We’ll do a great job and produce the best-quality sushi we can. But until sushi is approved for import, and the consumer accepts the material and we get reorders, I won’t have anything but hope.

“Then,” Scudder said, “if we start getting consistent reorders after we’re six or nine months down the road, there will be 500 competitors running up my back door.”