Sustainability– category –

柿の産地を調べると、生の柿と干し柿で地図がまったく違います。生の柿は和歌山と奈良が2本柱ですが、干し柿は6割が長野に集まっています。 そして干し柿には、国の専用統計があります。農林水産省の特産果樹生産動態等調査に「干し柿生産出荷実績調査」と...

柿をもらって置いておくと、数日で柔らかくなります。農林水産省の広報誌は「常温だと2日ほどで柔らかくなります」と書いています。なぜそんなに早いのか。調べていくと、原因がヘタにあることがわかりました。 柿はヘタが乾くと、そこからエチレンを出し...

庭に柿の木があって、どの柿なら干し柿になるのか迷う。あるいは店で買える柿で作れるのか知りたい。よく出てくる答えは「渋柿を使う」ですが、その先が曖昧なまま終わっている説明が多いと感じました。 そこで、農林水産省が品種登録の審査に使っている基...

渋柿をもらったとき、干すほかに道があります。生のまま、硬いまま、甘くして食べる。産地が毎年やっていることです。 ただ、やり方を調べると日数がばらばらです。焼酎に漬けて1週間という記事もあれば、3週間という記事もある。そこで都道府県の試験場と...

皮をむいた柿を吊るしたあと、置き場所で迷う人が多いはずです。軒下がないマンションならどうするのか、室内ではだめなのか、何日で食べられるのか。調べてもレシピサイトの体験談ばかりで、数字が出てこない。 そこで、国の地理的表示（GI）に登録された...

Agritureは、規格外の野菜を企業が買い取って贈り物にするプロジェクト「おいしい！を耕そう。」の紹介ページを公開しました。1口30万円で、畑で売り先をなくした野菜を約200kg買い取り、乾燥野菜2,000食にして、支援企業が指定した先へ1年かけてお届けし...

Kiriboshi daikon (dried shredded radish) is essential to simmered dishes. In fact, you can make it easily at home simply by cutting and drying daikon. Homemade versions have a richer sweetness and no additives to worry about. Still, many people hesitate over problems like "it won't dry properly," "I'm worried about mold," or "I don't know how to rehydrate or store it." In this article, we explain...

Mandarins are plentiful in winter. If you have some left over that you can't finish, turning them into dried mandarin is a great option. Drying concentrates the sweetness, and if you make them whole with the peel, the cross-section is as beautiful as a flower, adding a lovely touch to tea or yogurt. They turn out plenty sweet even without added sugar...

Shikuwasa is a citrus that represents Okinawa. With its sharp acidity, gently bitter peel, and refreshing aroma, it has many uses beyond simply squeezing it over food, extending to drinks, seasonings, and as an accent in cooking. That said, quite a few people find themselves unsure, wondering "the juice ends up left over" or "how do I use the peel?"...

Dried persimmon is a seasonal tradition from autumn into winter. The way astringent persimmons are reborn sweet through sun and wind can be recreated at home. Still, failures like "mold appeared" or "it didn't turn out sweet" are common, and mastering a few tips is what separates success from failure. In this article, we cover dried persimmon...

Dried mango is popular for its rich sweetness and tropical aroma. It's delicious on its own, but knowing different ways to eat it—rehydrating it in yogurt or mixing it into sweets and drinks—greatly expands the enjoyment. On the other hand, some find it "too sweet" or "too hard," which comes down to choosing the right type...

Kiwi is prized for its vivid green and sweet-tart flavor. Drying it mellows the tartness and concentrates the sweetness, making a snack distinctly different from the fresh fruit. The tiny popping texture of the seeds remains too, making it a perfect accent for granola or yogurt. In this article, we cover...

Bananas are too ripe to finish, or you want additive-free fruit for your child's snack—that's when dried banana comes in handy. The appeal of the homemade version is that you can concentrate the sweetness of ripe bananas as-is, without sugar or oil. Still, some run into issues like "it's sticky and not fully dried" or "it turned brown"...

KOMPEITO installed the salad vending machine "SALAD STAND," which changes prices with AI, at JR Kyobashi Station on May 13. It calculates the optimal price from foot traffic and expiration dates, implementing food-loss reduction inside the station.

System developer Nihon Knowledge Space was newly certified as a MAFF "Outstanding Food Education Practice Corporation 2026" for initiatives such as providing the off-spec vegetable delivery service "LossHeru" to all employees at company expense. It joined the list as one of the 333 companies in the first year.

Two upcycled beverages using fully ripe sudachi grown in Tokushima Prefecture were commercialized by Fuji and Mitsubishi Foods. As a rescue of citrus that wasn't shipped while green and was discarded after ripening yellow, it becomes the prefecture's 8th upcycling case.

"Yuri," a student group at Tottori University, spent two years commercializing cookies made from pear leaves. Focusing on abandoned pear orchards that no longer bear fruit, they make use of pesticide-free leaves—we introduce this initiative from Tottori, the home of pears.

"Blue blossom," a snack brand upcycling off-spec vegetables grown in Hokkaido, exhibited at the welfare event WellFes 2026. We introduce its management philosophy of "not making welfare something special" and its efforts to reduce food loss.

Seven-Eleven adopted Toyama-grown komatsuna, which tends to be discarded for overgrowing, in its "Red Salmon Barley-Rice Onigiri." We explain this food-loss-reduction effort, sold at about 340 Hokuriku stores from June 2, in partnership with JA Zen-Noh Toyama.

KOMPEITO teamed with JA Zen-Noh Kanagawa to process Miura-grown watermelon that can't reach the market due to blemishes or shape into konjac jelly. It began an effort to deliver it to over 25,000 offices nationwide via the placed-type health cafeteria "Office de Yasai."

When people hear "yakuzen ingredients," many may picture imported dried goods bought at a Chinese-ingredient store, such as jujube and goji berries. Yet many yakuzen ingredients can in fact be assembled from familiar domestically grown vegetables and dried goods. The image that "you cannot start without ordering something special" is...

Have you ever thought, "Yakuzen and Kampo seem similar, but where do they differ?" Because both are rooted in Eastern medicine, they're easily confused, yet they are distinct things with clearly different roles. On this page, we organize the difference between yakuzen and Kampo through the lens of "food" and "medicine"...

Many people feel that "yakuzen seems good for you, but doesn't it require special ingredients or crude drugs?" In fact, yakuzen is a style of eating based on the ideas of Eastern medicine that you can start with everyday vegetables from the supermarket. On this page, we explain what yakuzen is...

A small jar of ground sansho sits in the kitchen, never opened except when eating eel. A common story. Here's the conclusion first. Sansho is a crop that appears four times a year in different forms: kinome in spring, hana-sansho in April, green berries in May, and fully ripened berries in autumn. Each suits different dishes. 'Sansho = ee...

A mapo tofu recipe calls for 'huajiao,' but what you have at home is ground sansho, and you're unsure whether to substitute. Or the spellings 'hua jiao' and 'huajiao' vary, and you can't tell whether they point to the same thing. Here's the conclusion first. Sansho and huajiao are different plants of the same genus...

Fresh green sansho, which appears in early summer, is prized for its tingly numbness and refreshing aroma. But once you buy it, prepping comes first, and many people are unsure—"what do I do with the stems?", "how long do I boil it to remove the bitterness?", "how do I store it so it keeps for a year?" On this page, we cover prepping green sansho...

Sansho is essential to eel, mapo tofu, and chirimen sansho. But even under the single name "sansho," it comes in various forms—green sansho, powdered sansho, and kinome—and people often wonder "what's the difference between green sansho and powdered sansho?" or "is it different from huajiao?" It's a spice that represents Japan, defined by its aroma and numbing tingle...

Ichimi togarashi, sprinkled over udon and soups. When it comes time to choose, people often wonder "what's the difference between ichimi and shichimi?" and "which should I use?" They look and are used similarly, but there's a clear difference in their ingredients and roles. On this page, we cover what ichimi togarashi is...

The chili peppers in your home garden turned deep red, so you spread them on a basket under the eaves. After about a week they were bone-dry, so you put them in a jar. A month later you opened the lid to find something like white fluff on them. This is not an unusual story. Here's the conclusion first. Simply sun-drying does not...

One bag at the supermarket says "takanotsume," and another shelf says "togarashi." In the produce section, "shishito" and "ao-togarashi" sit side by side, and at a roadside station in Tohoku the same thing is called "nanban." There are four or five names, and which is a variety name and which a general term...

Kagome released nationwide a 100% juice that reproduces the taste of orange without using orange juice, as the first product of its new brand "KAGOME Beyond." We explain the details of the alternative beverage completed over about 2 years and 40 prototypes, and the background of the global orange supply crisis.

Yamanashi's KEIPE and the Kiyosato Milk Plant will release a new gelato "Noryo Jealousy," combining whey produced in cheese-making with off-spec fruit, on April 28, 2026. We summarize the background of the release and where to buy it.

22 companies led by Kagome launched an idea contest 2026 for students on March 2. Against intake of 218g for men and 210g for women in their 20s, it invites measures to close the gap to the 350g target. Realistic solutions such as keeping dried vegetables stocked in the office are also welcome.

According to the Q1 (January–March) 2026 export statistics for agriculture, forestry, and fishery products announced by Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, total exports reached 16.69 billion US dollars (up 5.9% year-on-year). It was achieved amid the headwind of a sharp drop in international prices for staple crops such as coffee and rice, and the resilience of the fisheries sector in particular...

"This tomato can't be shipped—its calyx is a bit cracked." With harvested vegetables before them, such words are exchanged among production sites not infrequently. Vegetables that fall out of distribution based solely on "shape" or "size," even though the flavor, aroma, and the effort of growing them should be the same...

Kale, known as an ingredient in aojiru green juice. This vegetable, in fact, is nicknamed the "king of vegetables" for its high nutritional value. A member of the Brassicaceae family alongside cabbage and broccoli, and positioned as the ancestor of these vegetables, kale is thought to originate along the Mediterranean coast in the region of Greece, and has been cultivated since before...

Eating dried fruit and nuts together has become a popular snack and trail food. But if you mix your favorites yourself and store them, the nuts can go soft and lose their texture within a few days. The cause is moisture. The moisture left in the dried fruit...

You finally bought some dried fruit, and before you knew it, mold had appeared. Have you had this experience? It's easy to assume dried fruit lasts a long time because it's dried, but in fact, storing it incorrectly can cause it to deteriorate far faster than expected. Especially sugar-free or additive-free domestic...

You can't judge what's in a dried fruit assortment from the package photo alone. Even among "6-variety sets," some contain costly fruits while others are bulked out with cheap items. The clues are on the back: the order of the ingredient list and the net weight...

The Basic Way to Enjoy It—Eating It As-Is The simplest way to eat dried apple is to open the bag and snack on it as-is. The water has been removed and the sweetness concentrated, so you can enjoy a richer flavor than fresh apple. That said, even "as-is" varies by texture type and the timing of when you eat it...

Dried lemon is a processed food made by slicing and drying fresh lemons. Its biggest difference from fresh lemon is shelf life. Fresh lemon lasts about 2–3 weeks refrigerated at most, but dried lemon keeps about two weeks at room temperature and even longer if refrigerated or frozen. By driving off the moisture...

"Fuji," seen year-round in the fruit aisle, is the most widely grown apple in Japan. With a balance of sweetness and acidity, a firm bite, and good keeping quality, it is used for everything from gifts to everyday snacks. That said, even one word, "Fuji,"...

Alongside rising health consciousness, interest in superfoods is expanding worldwide. Among them, moringa—called a "nutrient-rich tree"—is drawing attention from both its high nutritional value and sustainability. Moringa is a plant native to northwestern India, containing vitamin A, vitamin...

In Japan, you rarely see a price tag for "imported apples" in the supermarket fruit section. Imported bananas are a given, yet apples alone are almost all domestic. The reason isn't taste or price—it lies in the plant quarantine system. This article com... [the world's apple production by coun...]

When you pick up a lemon at the supermarket, have you ever been unsure? About 90% of the lemons on store shelves are imported. The remaining mere 10%—domestic lemons—come into season mainly from October to March. Hiroshima Prefecture accounts for about 50% of domestic production, with cultivation thriving on the mild climate of the Seto Inland...

Even the same "Fuji" gives a different taste impression between Aomori-grown and Nagano-grown. Many who've compared origin labels at supermarkets or farm-direct stands have wondered why the price and texture differ. Apple flavor isn't decided by cultivar alone—the land's climate, altitude, and day-night temperature swing greatly...

When you buy apples, the first thing you wonder is "should I store them at room temperature or refrigerated?" To get to the point, apples last longest in the fridge's vegetable compartment (0–5°C). In the cold air of autumn and winter, they last about a month at room temperature, 1–2 months refrigerated (vegetable compartment), and up to 3 months frozen...

A recipe says "one apple," and you stop in front of the scale. Or a mail-order listing says "L size," and you don't know how many grams that is. Both are common situations. Let us give the answer first. The weight of one apple is determined by the variety, from 240 grams to 500 gra...

Prep Before Drying Determines the Result. Drying apples is 70% decided by the prep before applying heat. Even with the same variety and the same dehydrator, skipping the cut thickness or the small step of preventing discoloration leaves you with a sticky or brown, cloudy result that differs in finish. First, the three prep points...

When choosing aojiru, do you judge only by words like "good for your health" on the package? In fact, the characteristics of aojiru vary greatly depending on the raw materials used. The main raw materials, kale, barley grass and moringa, each have their own nutritional profile and characteristics, and depending on your purpose...