Tomomi Yoshida, 34, has been enthusiastic in goat cheese production as well as in musical activities at Kurobe-shi, facing the Japan Sea in the eastern part of Toyama prefecture.
Tomomi Yoshida showing her cheese, Ricotta La Capra, with the certificate of “Supreme Product Prize” awarded at the 2015 international goat cheese contest in Italy (in Kurobe-shi, Toyama prefecture)
A cheese product of YOSHIDA KOSAN, which company she has been working for, was awarded “Supreme Product Prize” at a goat cheese international contest, “All’Ombra della Madonnina,” held at Milan, Italy in May 2015. Her company was the first Asian winner of the award at the contest. This January, Japan Airlines began to offer the cheese produced by her company during in-flight meal services for passengers of its international flights.
Tomomi Yoshida has another occupation of a singer. Music of her song has been played as a “platform melody” when bullet trains Shinkansen leave the Kurobe-Unazuki Onsen station located in Toyama prefecture since the Hokuriku Shinkansen line of West Japan Railway Company (JR West) started its operation in March 2015. Her cheese and music are simultaneously taking an active role in enhancing vitality of her local society.
Her company is represented by her father, Tadahiro Yoshida, 69, chairman and CEO of a global enterprise, YKK Corporation, headquartered at Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. In 2012, he proposed to his family members that they should raise some goats at a farm operated by the local municipality.
Tomomi accepted his proposal and went to Italy to visit a goat cheese producer living in the northern part of the country, a center of Italian goat cheese production. She stayed there about one year to acquire the skills for producing a genuine goat cheese.
(Feb. 17, 2016)