“Japan Rice Flour Association” will be set up in Tokyo on May 25 by more than 50 individuals and organizations including agricultural cooperatives, consumers’ organizations, food-related business operators, gourmet scholars, and academics.
The Association aims at stimulating demands for rice flour as well as promoting development of its items by spreading not only a new standard for categorizing Japanese rice flour according to its uses into three classifications, rice flour for cakes, rice flour for bread and rice flour for noodle, but also a labelling standard for “non-gluten rice flour” without any gluten contained, which standards were recently fixed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
For the purpose of popularizing new standards for rice flour, the Association will hold briefing sessions at eight cities in the country this summer.
The Association also plans to carry out publicity activities for promoting retailers’ understanding on merits of rice flour.
Members of the Association, furthermore, are growing their interests in publicity activities on Japanese rice flour products in overseas markets particularly at European countries where demands for food items of “gluten-free rice flour” are expected to grow.