Half-automated onigiri rice ball machine by Zojirushi to be shown at Expo 2025 Osaka

OSAKA, Mar. 7 – Zojirushi Corporation, which will have an onigiri rice ball shop at the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, opening on April 13, unveiled its half-automated onigiri rice ball making system on March 6, The company automated most of onigiri making processes, excluding feeding cocked rice into the tank, putting ingredients, and wrapping. The system was created jointly with Suzumo Machinery Co., Ltd., a supplier of onigiri robots for convenience stores as the first system of this kind to fit in a small room of about 5 square meters. Customers can order onigiri with their favorite ingredients using smartphones that can read a QR code in front of … Continue reading

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Shipments of Tosa Buntan pomelos in season

KOCHI, March 2 — Shipments of Tosa Buntan pomelos grown outdoors are in full swing in Tosa, Kochi Prefecture. Farms’ work areas and fruit sorting facilities are filled with liveliness of workers and the fresh scent of the citrus fruit that signals the coming of spring. The city of Tosa is where the pomelos were born and it is also the nation’s top producing area of the fruit. In the city, the fruit is cultivated by 94 farms that belong to the Tosa Buntan growers’ group of JA Kochi, a local agricultural cooperative. Tosa Buntan pomelos are harvested between December and January. They are then kept outside in temporary storage … Continue reading

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Japan’s Local Vitalization Cooperator program made into a movie

A film about Japan’s Local Vitalization Cooperator program is screened in various parts of the country. The movie is named “Hitoshizuku,” which can be translated as “One Drop,” was filmed and directed by Daisuke Yamashita, 32, in Minami Osumi Town, Kagoshima Prefecture. He interviewed more than 200 cooperators in the program nationwide and completed the movie with the cooperation of the women’s division of a local agricultural cooperative, JA Kagoshima Kimotsuki. According to the Regional Power Creation Group of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, this is Japan’s first movie on the theme of the Local Vitalization Cooperators, as far as it knows. The story is about a woman in … Continue reading

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A firm in Hokkaido creates life-size cow statues to promote the dairy industry

HOKKAIDO, Feb. 25 — FRP Uchiyama, a firm in Obihiro, Hokkaido, manufactures life-size cow statues displayed at tourism ranches and dairy-related events. It has so far sold more than 100 statues across the country. Some of the statues are also used at livestock farming schools as learning material to practice taking care of cows including milking and calving. The statues, made of fiber reinforced plastics (FRP), are lightweight, strong and highly water-resistant. They come in three breed type designs — Holstein, Wagyu and Jersey. The statue of an adult Holstein cow appears big and powerful, measuring 90 centimeters wide, 245 cm long and 170 cm high. JA Shihoro, an agricultural … Continue reading

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Season for arare colorful, tasteful crackers made from glutinous rice starts in Japan

The production of arare, a type of Japanese cracker made from glutinous rice, is now at its peak in Miyako Town, Fukuoka Prefecture. A 54-year-old farmer, Miyuki Tominaga, was drying colorful bite-sized rice crackers in her workspace. She uses home-grown Hiyoku Mochi glutinous rice and about 10 different ingredients, including ginger, red perilla, and green laver, to add colors and flavors. Arare is everyone’s favorite winter snack, which is eaten baked and fried. It takes about a month to dry and then ship. Her arare is sold primarily at a farmers’ market run by a local agricultural cooperative in Fukuoka, JA Fukuoka Keichiku. Tominaga began full-scale production of arare five … Continue reading

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