Shinshu Ueda Agricultural Cooperative (JA) in Nagano prefecture, Nagano-ken Rengoseika, one of the biggest grocery wholesalers in the prefecture, and EVERY HOMEY HOLDINGS Co., Ltd., headquartered at Fukuyama-shi, Hiroshima prefecture operating supermarkets and restaurants, jointly set up a task force to create a new distribution system of farm products.
The task force aims to save the trouble of grading farm products and reduce the costs by making an agreement among the three partners on how to sell as well as how to use prior to shipment of the products, which, the partners are sure, will bring about an increase in farmers’ net income.
Supermarkets of the HOLDINGS plan to keep down selling prices of farm products by selling out of the products directly purchased from JA Shinshu Ueda without leaving any loss of the products. Substandard farm products are to be used as ingredients at some restaurants of the HOLDINGS.
JA Shinshu Ueda and other two partners start to implement the new project only at a specific limited area in the mountainous region of Nagano prefecture. However, stakeholders of these partners plan to make the project successfully take off in a near future, hoping even a small group of farmers will be able to have their own brand products in their own distribution system.