Amid increasing popularity of yogurt as a healthy food, publisher Nitto Shoin Honsha Co. has put on sale a recipe book for cooking with yogurt. The book, written by registered dietitian Mamiko Asano with support from Morinaga Milk Industry Co., introduces 65 recipes which use Morinaga bifidus plain yogurt BB536 in preparation or finishing stages. The book is intended to broaden the range of yogurt cooking and further expand consumption of yogurt. Sales of yogurt grew largely in 2012 as its health and beauty benefits, including its effect to activate the immune system, attracted attention of consumers, and the growth is continuing this year. Morinaga began a one-spoon project to … Continue reading →

  The National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations (JA Zen-noh), which handles marketing and supply of agricultural products, announced Tuesday, November 19, that it will start marketing its own brand of processed foods in supermarkets, consumers’ cooperatives and convenience stores nationwide. JA Zen-noh showed the same day 65 items of processed food to be put on sale under the Zen-noh brand this year, including ham, bacon, jaozi dumplings and rice cakes. The federation plans to introduce 100 items every year in the three years until fiscal 2015. It set a target of selling JPY 1 billion of Zen-noh brand products this fiscal year, JPY 4 billion in fiscal 2014 and … Continue reading →

Some farmers in Date, Fukushima Prefecture, resumed production of “anpokaki,” or dried persimmons, which was put on hold for three years because they feared radioactive fallout from the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant. Satoshi Shishido, 61, head of the anpokaki production team of an agricultural cooperative in Date, started on Friday, November 15, the processing of “hachiya,” the main persimmon variety for anpokaki, including peeling, tying them onto drying ropes and fumigating them using sulphur. “Now we can finally make anpokaki,” Shishido said cheerfully. “I soon remembered the working procedures.” The persimmons are hung in rows in a drying room for roughly a month to become anpokaki. Anpokaki produced in Date … Continue reading →

  The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said it plans to revise the individual-household income compensation system for farmers and increase payments to those who grow rice for livestock feed from the current JPY 80,000 per 10 ares. Currently, growers of rice for livestock feed nationwide receive the same amount of subsidies regardless of yields, but the ministry said it will provide more payments to those who harvest more than the yearly average yields of rice for human consumption in each region, with the aim of encouraging farmers to grow more rice for animal feed and make efforts to raise productivity. The ministry estimates that the nation has potential … Continue reading →