Rei Kojima– Author –
CEO of Agriture Inc. Runs a contract processing and OEM business centered on dried vegetables and dried fruit. In partnership with farmers within Kyoto Prefecture, he pursues “sustainable food distribution” through the use of non-standard vegetables and support for sixth-industrialization. Drawing on extensive hands-on experience at manufacturing sites, he provides support that walks alongside every business considering OEM—from product planning and prototyping to small-lot handling, packaging design, and sales-channel development.
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Food OEM
Tea OEM Price Ranges: 5 Ways to Keep Costs Down and 7 Points for Quotes
Tea OEM price ranges are determined by five factors: product type, lot, ingredient grade, packaging, and certification requirements. Tea bags run from tens to hundreds of yen per unit, and for leaf tea the unit price moves greatly depending on tea-leaf grade, while vegetable tea and foods with function claims add further prototyping and testing costs... -
Food OEM
How to Request Tea OEM Manufacturing: A Complete Guide to the Industry's 5 Types and a Cost Breakdown
You want to launch your own original tea brand. For you who harbor this wish, there is the option of a tea OEM. OEM is short for "Original Equipment Manufacturer," a system for outsourcing the manufacture of your own brand's products to another manufacturer. In the tea industry, from raw material procurement... -
Food OEM
Tea Gift OEM: 10 Points for Making Products That Get Chosen and an Ordering Guide
Tea gift OEM is an approach that lets you plan and sell original tea gift products without owning your own manufacturing equipment. You can design products to match the gift occasion and price range—chugen, seibo, celebratory return gifts, corporate novelties—across a wide range from green tea, black tea, and tea bags to premium blends and vegetable tea... -
Recipes & uses
How to make an herbal tea blend | Formulation design balanced with bitterness, tartness, and umami
Blending herbal tea is a way of combining several herbs and tea leaves to pack a flavor, aroma, and function into a single cup that you can't get from any one on its own. Herbal tea blends made at home extend to enjoyment such as gathering single ingredients at Kaldi or Muji and carrying them in your own bottle. Herbal... -
Health & nutrition
Is decaf coffee bad for you? Effects, brewing methods, and how to choose
Have you ever heard that "decaf coffee is bad for you" or "isn't it pointless?" For people who are pregnant or want to enjoy coffee to unwind at night, it is a topic where you want to know the truth. In short, if you choose the extraction method correctly, decaf coffee... -
Food OEM
A complete explanation of the coffee OEM flow! All steps from order to delivery
コーヒーOEMとは、自社ブランドのオリジナルコーヒーを、専門メーカーに製造委託する仕組みです。カフェや飲食店が自店の味を物販用に商品化したり、企業がノベルティや記念品としてオリジナルのドリップバッグを用意したり、観光施設がご当地土産をつくっ... -
Food OEM
How to choose a coffee OEM vendor | 5 vendor categories and a quote check
How to choose a coffee OEM vendor is the single most important decision that influences a brand's taste, cost, and speed. Vendors come in five types—self-roasting specialists, major subcontractors, drip-bag specialists, roaster-operated shops, and regional roasteries—and each has different areas of strength, minimum lots, and prototyping flexibility. ... -
Food OEM
How to start coffee OEM at small lots | 3 formats and 7 ordering points
Small-lot coffee OEM ordering is a way to bring a unique-brand coffee to market with reduced risk. For each of the three formats—beans, drip bags, and RTD (PET bottle / can)—the minimum lot, unit price, and equipment differ. With a small-lot-support maker, prototyping and mass production from 50–500 units... -
Dried vegetables
How to choose dried tomatoes | Domestic, additive-free, no added salt
When choosing domestic dried tomato, just keeping in mind the four check items—"domestic or imported," "additive-free (whether it contains salt, sugar, or preservatives)," "whether it has certification such as Organic JAS," and "processing type"—greatly changes your satisfaction after buying. In recent store shelves, additive-free and domestic labeling front and center... -
Food OEM
Drip Pack Gift OEM: A Guide to 5 Filter Types and Specifications by Use
Drip pack gift OEM is a coffee gift product that companies and shops can roll out under their own brand. In the industry, the names "drip bag" and "drip pack" are used interchangeably, but both refer to a product form in which a single serving of ground beans is filled into an individually packaged filter bag. Small-lot... -
Product development
How to Develop Vegetable Tea for Business People: Product Planning That Captures Health Demand
For today's business people whose work centers on desk work, maintaining health is a major challenge. As more people struggle with a lack of vegetables and a lack of exercise, demand is rising for functional beverages that let you easily supplement nutrition. In particular, the new category of "vegetable tea" combines the nutrition of conventional tea and vegetables... -
Food OEM
Flavored coffee OEM | Design guide for beans and adding aroma
Flavored coffee OEM is a format for contract-manufacturing an original coffee with aromas—vanilla, hazelnut, caramel, chocolate, yuzu, Japanese ingredients, and the like—entrusted to a roaster or coffee specialist maker. From label changes based on off-the-shelf products to bean selection, roast level, and flavor... -
Product development
Flavored Tea Development: Differentiating Aroma with 3 Elements × 4 Axes
Flavored tea is a product category that adds the aromas of fruits, herbs, spices, flowers, and the like to a base tea leaf such as black, green, oolong, or white tea. The basic approach is to differentiate through three elements—base tea leaf, flavoring ingredient, and method of imparting aroma—and demand exists for D2C, cafés, gifts, and tourist souvenirs... -
Dried vegetables
EC事業者必見。乾燥野菜ミックスをOEMでつくる方法
乾燥野菜ミックスOEMは、複数の乾燥野菜を商品コンセプトに合わせてブレンドし、自社ブランドで販売するための製造委託です。味噌汁の具・スープ・カップ麺のかやく・炊き込みごはん・非常食など、お湯や水で戻して使う商品で採用されています。 この記事... -
Food OEM
How to start a health tea OEM | How to build a brand chosen for functional beverages
With health consciousness rising now, the functional beverage market continues its rapid expansion. Health tea in particular is supported by many consumers as an easily adopted daily health habit, and the 2024 market for foods with function claims is projected to top 600 billion yen. In such a huge market, one's own... -
Dried vegetables
The Complete Guide to OEM Manufacturing of Domestic Dried Vegetables | A Thorough Explanation from Small-Lot Support to How to Choose
As awareness of food safety rises, demand for domestically grown dried vegetables is rapidly expanding. As of 2025 in particular, additive-free products that use no food additives and OEM manufacturing services that can handle small lots are strongly sought by small and medium-sized companies and new entrants. Conventionally, mass production was... -
Product development
Choosing a Food OEM Prototyping Partner: 8 Criteria and the Practice of On-Site Auditing
Choosing a food OEM partner is the work of discerning, at the prototyping stage, a manufacturer's areas of strength, quality control systems, know-how, production capacity, and inventory handling. A manufacturer that appears often in rankings is not necessarily the right fit for you, and "how they tailor formulation proposals," "bridging from prototype to mass production," and handling trouble... -
Product development
The Going Rate for Food OEM Prototyping Costs and 10 Points for Cutting Costs
Food OEM prototyping costs generally range from 10,000–50,000 yen for powder-based products, 20,000–100,000 yen for beverages and seasonings, and 50,000–200,000 yen for snacks and baked goods. Because prototyping incurs initial costs on the manufacturer's side for equipment operation, raw material procurement, and formulation design, understanding in detail what costs how much before signing a contract... -
Product development
Kansai Food OEM: 6 Steps to Making a New Product and Subsidies
The strengths of making a new product with a Kansai food OEM lie in the industrial clusters in each of the six prefectures—Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo (Kobe), Nara, Wakayama, and Shiga—Kinki's food research institutions, the logistics network of Hanshin, Kintetsu, Kansai Airport, and the Port of Kobe, and the diversity of regional food culture. Prepared dishes, seasonings, health foods, confectionery, beverages, packaging... -
Powder
The complete guide to powder-processing OEM in Kansai | Strengths by area and how to choose small-lot-friendly manufacturers
For those looking for powder-processing OEM in the Kansai area, we explain the features of Kansai's food-processing bases centered on Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyogo, and the points for selecting a maker. Kansai is an area where the food manufacturing industry has clustered since long ago. The processing technology represented by Osaka's flour-food culture, and Kyoto's traditional ingredients... -
Powder
The complete guide to succeeding at PB development with vegetable powder | Small lots supported
Vegetable powder is an ingredient made by drying and powdering vegetables, combining shelf stability with concentrated nutrition. This characteristic is a strong weapon for food manufacturers, retailers, and D2C operators who want to launch private brand (PB) products from small lots. Fresh vegetables have waste loss and purchasing fluctuation... -
Powder
Vegetable sweets OEM | The complete guide to designing color, flavor, and nutrition with vegetable powder
Using vegetable powder in sweets lets you add the natural color and flavor of kabocha, purple sweet potato, beet, spinach, carrot, and more without artificial colorings or food dye. Just mix it with cake flour, milk, and eggs to give homemade cookies, cakes, bread, macarons, and ice cream a "with vegetables" touch... -
Powder
Make Baby Food Easy with Vegetable Powder: Safe Uses and Recipes by Age
Vegetable powder is a handy ingredient that both saves time and boosts nutrition when making baby food. Choosing a domestically grown, additive-free powder lets you incorporate vegetables such as kabocha, spinach, carrot, and lotus root little by little to match your baby's age, while being mindful of powderiness and allergy risk... -
Powder
The complete guide to choosing vegetable powder: also explaining the difference between commercial and household use
Vegetable powder is a food ingredient made by drying and powdering vegetables, used as a commercial raw material across a wide range—confectionery, beverages, soups, baby food, care food, pet food. Even the same "vegetable powder" differs in production method (hot-air drying, freeze-drying, vacuum drying), particle size (mesh... -
Powder
Additive-free design with vegetable powder | How to choose natural colorants for use as coloring food
Using vegetable powder as a natural pigment lets you put color and flavor into a product with just the ingredient name, without adding food red or edible colorants. The crimson of beets, the yellow of pumpkin, the green of spinach, the magenta of purple sweet potato—being able to write "beet powder" or "pumpkin powder" in the product's ingredient list is the greatest... -
Powder
How to use commercial vegetable powder | Uses at restaurants and storage
Commercial vegetable powder is a raw material for handling the color, flavor, and nutrition of vegetables at room temperature—used by restaurants, cafés, hotels, school-meal businesses, and food makers. Compared with fresh vegetables, it excels in shelf life, work efficiency, and yield, and can reduce sourcing variation and disposal loss, making it a standard material in commercial kitchens and workshops... -
Dried vegetables
The Secret to Vegetable Dashi Is Dried Vegetables! Tips for Drawing Out Umami
Combining vegetable dashi with dried vegetables is a use that makes it easier to achieve both umami density and time savings compared with drawing dashi from fresh vegetables. Because their water has been removed, dried vegetables have relatively concentrated flavor compounds such as glutamic acid and aspartic acid, which dissolve directly into the soaking liquid. Agriture's... -
Raw materials & ingredients
Plant-Based Vegetable Dashi: An Introduction to Umami Compounds and Uses
Vegetable dashi as a plant-based stock is a dashi drawn from the umami and aroma of vegetables, using no animal ingredients whatsoever. The amino acids (glutamic acid, aspartic acid) contained in onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms, and kombu, along with the nucleotide guanylic acid and vegetable-derived sugars, dissolve out... -
Raw materials & ingredients
How to Make Vegetable Dashi and Vege-Broth: The Difference and Tips for Using Vegetable Scraps
Vegetable dashi is a stock drawn using only the umami and aroma of vegetables, with no animal ingredients. As the amino acids and sugars of onion, carrot, celery, and mushrooms dissolve out, a gentle sweetness and mild umami emerge. Because it contains no animal ingredients, it suits vegan, vegetarian, and halal... -
Food OEM
How to start a yakuzen tea OEM | A product development guide that makes use of the wisdom of Eastern medicine
A yakuzen tea OEM is a system that lets you plan and sell an original health tea—blending crude drugs and tea leaves based on the ideas of Eastern medicine—without owning your own manufacturing equipment. Because you can outsource everything to a manufacturer—blend design, raw material procurement, manufacturing, and packaging—you can achieve differentiated health... -
Food OEM
[For Beginners] What Is a Vegetarian? An Explanation of the Types, Foods They Can't Eat, and Market Expansion
The definition and origins of vegetarianism. A vegetarian is someone who avoids animal-based foods such as meat and seafood and centers their diet on vegetables, fruit, grains, and legumes. Today, amid rising health and environmental awareness, the vegetarian population is growing worldwide. Food... -
Freeze-dried
フリーズドライと乾燥野菜の違いとは?味・ロット・コストで選ぶ乾燥製法ガイド
"Dried vegetables," drawing attention against the backdrop of rising health consciousness and stockpiling needs. Among them, the properties differ greatly by manufacturing method between freeze-drying and warm-air drying (air-drying). They look similar, but their inner workings are surprisingly little known. The difference between the two and their benefits... -
Dried vegetables
Medicinal tea OEM is a system that lets you plan and sell health teas combining tea leaves, crude drugs, and medicinal-cuisine (yakuzen) materials—based on the theories of the four qi and five flavors, meridian tropism, and qi-blood-body fluids in Traditional Chinese Medicine—without your own facilities. This article explains the difference between medicinal tea and herbal or health tea, the four product types of seasonal, constitutional, symptom, and vegetable-yakuzen, the practicalities of raw material selection and blend design, how to choose an OEM manufacturer, 7 leading companies handling medicinal tea and health tea OEM, the manufacturing process and lead time, and sales strategies for mail-order and cafés—delivered by Kyoto-born dried vegetable OEM company Agriture, drawing on its insights from operating a yakuzen media outlet.
This report describes the market conditions and trends of the dried-vegetable-related industry, centered on Japan, from our perspective. We've also included our own analysis for each item. Please use it in developing products using dried vegetables and other dried foods. And for those interested in the dried-vegetable market... -
Powder
Forecasting the vegetable powder market in 2030! An explanation of growth fields and the latest trends
The market for vegetable powder has expanded greatly in the past few years, reaching from commercial ingredients and health foods to functional beverages, baby food, pet food, and collaboration products. From food makers we hear "we want to use out-of-spec vegetables" and "we're looking for a vegetable ingredient for health management or employee benefits"... -
Dried fruit
The Health Effects of Dried Fruit: A Summary of Benefits, Nutrition, and Cautions on Sugar
Dried fruit, sometimes imagined as a healthy light snack, is characterized by being eatable anytime and providing easy nutrition, thanks to drying fresh fruit to raise its shelf life. Such dried fruit has long been beloved worldwide, used as emergency rations and portable food... -
Dried fruit
A Thorough Explanation of the Difference Between Candied Dried Fruit and the Sugar-Free Type
Dried fruit, as a food that concentrates fruit's nutrition such as vitamins and dietary fiber, is spreading in popularity alongside rising health consciousness. But even under the single name "dried fruit," there are broadly two types of manufacturing method: the "candied type" and the "sugar-free..." -
Dried fruit
Is Dried Fruit Good for Dieting? A Thorough Explanation of Calories and the Right Way to Eat It
Dried fruit is popular as a "natural snack," but many people may feel anxious about whether it's okay to eat while dieting. Because it's small in appearance but concentrated in nutrition, there are doubts such as "isn't it high in calories?" and "won't eating too much make me gain weight..." -
Dried fruit
Where Can You Buy Dried Fruit? A Thorough Explanation of the Characteristics of Each Source and How to Choose
Dried fruit is a popular food that concentrates fruit's vitamins and dietary fiber. Demand is expanding as a snack, a cooking ingredient, and even a gift. But when it comes to "where can you actually buy it?", from convenience stores and supermarkets to imported-food shops such as Muji and Kaldi, and further... -
Dried fruit
ドライフルーツのOEMで甘い品種を選ぶと失敗する理由
ドライフルーツのOEMは、果実の乾燥加工から袋詰めまでを製造委託し、自社ブランドで販売する仕組みです。設備を持たなくても商品を持てる一方、乾燥野菜や菓子のOEMとは原価の決まり方が大きく違います。 違いの正体は歩留まりです。果実は水分が8割以上... -
Dried vegetables
Why Dried Vegetables Now? 5 Benefits Beyond Just Convenient and Nutrient-Concentrated
"I want to eat vegetables properly every day"; "I need to eat 350g of vegetables a day." Even when you think this, work, chores, and childcare take over and before you know it the day is done. It is precisely those people we want to offer, anew, the option of "dried vegetables." Dried vegetables may bring to mind kiriboshi daikon... -
Dried vegetables
How to Choose Dried Goods, Taught by a Pro | 5 Important Points and How to Tell Them Apart
Dry goods are foods with raised shelf life through drying ingredients. From traditional ones like kelp, shiitake, and beans to newer categories like dried vegetables and dried fruit, there's a truly wide variety of kinds. The greatest appeal of dry goods is, above all, their high shelf life. Long-term stor... at room temperature -
Food OEM
How to start vegetarian OEM | Ingredient selection and product planning for vegan support
We want to develop food for vegetarians and vegans through OEM. But we're not sure how far raw-material restrictions and production-process considerations need to go—we're hearing more of these voices from companies. What you'll learn in this article: the difference in dietary restrictions between vegetarian and vegan (directly tied to raw-material design... -
Dried vegetables
A Guide to Using Dried Vegetables as a Pet Food Raw Material
More owners want to incorporate vegetable nutrition when thinking about their pet's health. But raw vegetables don't keep and take effort to prepare, so it's not easy to work them into daily meals. That's where "dried vegetables," with excellent storability and convenience, are drawing attention... -
Dried vegetables
6 Reasons Dried Vegetable Gifts Are Well-Received and Tips for Choosing Them
Dried vegetable gifts, drawing attention alongside rising health consciousness. Lately their popularity as gifts has been surging. What is the appeal of this new kind of gift, which sets itself apart from conventional sweets and consumables? This article covers the reasons dried vegetable gifts get chosen and well-received products... -
Dried vegetables
How to Make Dried Vegetables | Tips for Easy Home-Dried Vegetables and Recipe Uses
Dried vegetables are a handy ingredient that raises storability by removing moisture and concentrates vegetables' nutrition and umami. With easy cooking and simple room-temperature storage, the market is expanding for both commercial and home use, and it's also drawing attention as an OEM ingredient. Meanwhile, "is glucose used in dried vegetables..." -
Dried vegetables
A Complete Guide to the Pros and Cons of Dried Goods: Uses Explained Too
Dried goods are foods made by evaporating the water from ingredients through methods such as sun-drying. They are said to have already been used as far back as the Jomon and Yayoi periods, and are deeply rooted in Japanese food culture. Amid Japan's distinctive climate—hot and humid in summer, cold and dry in winter—in an age without refrigerators, ingredients... -
Dried vegetables
Learning the secrets to success and market strategy from overseas-expansion cases of dried goods
Dried goods, a representative traditional ingredient of Japanese food culture, are like a gem still not fully recognized in overseas markets. With superior shelf life, high nutritional value, and qualities that broaden the range of cooking, dried goods in fact hold great potential for overseas expansion. Kombu, shiitake, sesame... -
Product development
A Complete Guide to Making Original PB Foods: The Steps from Planning to Manufacturing and Sales
Have you ever harbored the wish to make a food under your own brand? Entrants from other industries—retail, restaurants, startups—have become conspicuous. Behind this are the expansion of the food OEM market and an environment where you can now prototype even from small quantities... -
Food OEM
The Complete Guide to Choosing a Filling OEM | Points for Selecting a Contractor Without Regret
The food OEM market is now enjoying unprecedented growth. Companies from other industries — retail, food service, startups, and more — are entering one after another, with voices saying "we want to make our own private-brand products." But if you fail in choosing a contractor for filling-and-processing OEM, you can face quality trouble, delivery delays, budget overruns... -
Food OEM
What Are the Benefits of Contract Food Processing? | Comparison with In-House Manufacturing and Points for Use
You want to launch a new business in the food industry. You want to make your own brand's products. For those with such ambitions, "food contract manufacturing" becomes a powerful option. However, when first considering contract manufacturing, worries come with the territory. "Is there really a cost advantage?" "How much...
