Rice shop owner Toshio Koike shows a package of six rice brands grown in the Tohoku region.
Koike Seimaiten, a rice shop in Harajuku, Tokyo, started selling a set of six organic, low-pesticide or low-chemical rice varieties grown in six prefectures in the Tohoku region to support the region’s revitalization efforts.
As March 11 marks the third anniversary of the gigantic earthquake and tsunami which hit the region, President Tadao Koike, 42, says he hopes to connect rice growers in Tohoku and consumers together by becoming a reliable supplier of Tohoku rice. More than 50 percent of rice sold annually at the shop is from Tohoku.
The 6,000-yen package includes 300g each of Akitakomachi from Akita Prefecture, Sasanishiki from Miyagi Prefecture, Hitomebore from Iwate Prefecture, Masshigura from Aomori Prefecture, Tsuyahime from Yamagata Prefecture and Koshihikari from Fukushima Prefecture.
The package is named “A-sa-hi-ma-tsu-hikari,” by taking the first or last letters from each of the six rice brand names, to mean “the sun rises no matter what happens” in Japanese, according to Koike. Each rice brand comes in a bag with the shape of each prefecture outlined in white against a background of different colors.
(March 7, 2014)