The Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation's "Vegetable Information, April 2026 Issue" Features ZEROCO's Freshness-Preservation Technology—The Potential of Ice-Temperature Storage for Agriculture and Distribution

A feature article on the vegetable freshness-preservation technology developed by ZEROCO Inc. appeared in the April 2026 issue of "Vegetable Information," a monthly published by the Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation (ALIC). ALIC is a public body that surveys and reports on vegetable supply-demand and price trends, and appearing in its specialist journal shows that attention to ZEROCO's technology is rising within the industry.

Featured in "Vegetable Information"—A New Freshness-Preservation Trend a Public Body Took Note Of

ALIC's "Vegetable Information" is a trade journal referenced by experts involved in vegetable distribution, growing regions, and policy. The April 2026 issue (last updated March 25, 2026) took up ZEROCO's technology in its "Topics" section, introducing how it differs from conventional preservation technologies and its potential application at farming sites.

ZEROCO Inc. is a startup founded in 2023 by Shujiro Kusumoto, developing cooling units that stably create and manage an ice-temperature environment of "about 0°C and just under 100% humidity." It is unusual for a public body's specialist journal to feature a startup's technology, which can be read as a sign that the technology's practicality and social significance were highly valued.

A Third Preservation Method That Elevated the Wisdom of "Under-Snow Vegetables" Into Technology

Refrigeration (0–10°C) and freezing (−18°C and below) are the two great preservation technologies underpinning today's food distribution. But each of these two options has its own inherent limits. Refrigeration keeps freshness for only a limited period and doesn't suit long-term storage. Freezing greatly extends the storage period, but cell destruction on thawing produces drip, degrading texture and quality.

What ZEROCO focused on is the idea of "under-snow vegetables," long handed down across Japan. Under snow-covered ground, vegetables don't freeze—and are in fact known to grow sweeter. The mechanism of this phenomenon is that at the ice-temperature zone of about 0°C, plant cells convert starch into sugar to avoid freezing, while the cells themselves remain almost undamaged.

ZEROCO's cooling units artificially recreate this "under-snow" environment. Through precise control of about 0°C and just under 100% humidity, it suppresses vegetables' metabolic activity to the utmost without destroying their cells. As a result, the risks of condensation, drip, freezer burn, mold, and rot drop sharply, enabling long-term storage that refrigeration could never achieve.

Furthermore, in frozen-food manufacturing, using ZEROCO as pre-cooling before freezing lets products be flash-frozen in a stable cell state, so drip after thawing is suppressed and "just-made" quality is maintained. This is a hybrid use combining freezing and the ice-temperature zone, turning the conventional "either/or" of refrigeration and freezing into an idea of "making the most of both."

Why This Technology Draws Attention Now—The Intersection of Agricultural Structural Change and Food Loss

Behind ZEROCO's technology drawing attention "now" lie structural challenges facing both agriculture and food distribution.

On the agriculture side, the aging of producers and a shortage of successors are deepening. It is estimated that by 2050 some regions will have producers over 70 make up more than 60%, and leveling out the concentration of harvest and shipping work has become an urgent management task. ZEROCO's technology enables "inventory-holding agriculture," storing vegetables harvested all at once in a bumper season for long periods and shipping them in stages to match demand. As farmers gain pricing power and avoid price collapses in bumper years, the shift from "an industry that ships volume to an industry that designs value" gains reality.

On the distribution and food-service side, addressing food loss has surfaced as a management issue. Japan's food loss reaches about 5 million tons a year, an economic loss of about 4 trillion yen.The FY2023 food-loss volume announced by the Ministry of the Environment was 4.64 million tons, and efforts toward the 2030 target are pressing. Cutting waste through long-term freshness preservation can approach this challenge directly.

ZEROCO has already introduced its technology at the long-established Kyoto restaurant "Kikunoi," with a track record of reducing uncertainty in ingredient procurement and leveling out prep and staffing. Proof at a demanding site like a high-end restaurant, where quality can't be compromised, is a powerful case for the technology's reliability. It is also building region-embedded infrastructure with storage facilities in Chitose, Hokkaido (about 165㎡), Ueki, Kumamoto (about 231㎡), and Naruto, Tokushima (about 331㎡).

A Comparison with Dried Vegetables—Viewing Them as Complementary

As a technology for long-term vegetable storage,dried vegetables (dried and freeze-dried)are also widely used. The two may seem to compete, but they are in fact complementary technologies with different uses.

Dried vegetables have advantages on the distribution and stockpiling front: room-temperature storage, light weight, and long-term keeping. On the other hand, because they are exposed to heat and drying in processing, loss of heat-unstable nutrients such as vitamin C and changes in texture are unavoidable.

ZEROCO's ice-temperature-zone storage has as its greatest strength keeping vegetables long-term in a state close to fresh. It shines where there is demand to "use them as fresh vegetables but make them last"—high-end restaurants, mass retailers' fresh-produce sections, produce for export, and the like.

The division of roles is clear on food-loss reduction too. Dried vegetables suit making effective use of off-grade and surplus goods, while ZEROCO cuts unsold and returned-goods loss by extending the disposal time lag for fresh items. In agriculture's move toward the sixth industry, too, going beyond the binary of "sell fresh at a high price" or "create added value through processing," a multi-stage exit strategy combining both technologies becomes possible.

Implications for Agriculture and the Food Industry

It carries great meaning that ALIC's public-body specialist journal featured ZEROCO. It functions as a signal to policymakers, distributors, and producer groups, and it may advance consideration as a future target for subsidies, demonstration projects, and grower partnerships.

With the world's population reaching about 10 billion in 2050 and food demand swelling 1.6-fold, the world's food loss—over 1.7 billion tons a year—can be described as "discarding today the food that should feed people 40 years from now." ZEROCO reframes this loss as a "new market on the order of 4 trillion yen" and seeks to socially implement freshness-preservation technology as business infrastructure.

As a technology that can achieve food-loss reduction and stabilization of farmers' incomes at once, its future development draws attention.The Consumer Affairs Agency raised the 2030 food-loss-reduction target to 60%; now such technological innovation can become a force that supports meeting the policy target.

Source:Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation, "Vegetable Information," April 2026 issue, Topics