How to Hold an In-House Tasting Event for Disaster-Stockpile Foods, Step by Step

What you will learn from this article

• Why a Stockpile-Food Tasting Event Works as a Disaster Drill
• Concrete Steps and Schedule from Planning to Execution
• Tricks to Boost Participation and Tips for Internal Announcements
• How Rolling Stock and the Tasting Event Work Together
• How to Show Cost-Effectiveness to Persuade Management

“Isn’t your disaster drill getting stale, repeating the same thing every year?”

Checking evacuation routes and how to use a fire extinguisher. They’re important, but looking at the participants’ faces, there’s often that air of “here we go again,” isn’t there?

In fact, there’s a method that breaks the drill out of its rut while also advancing rolling stock of your stockpile foods. It’s the “stockpile-food tasting event.”

In the Fire and Disaster Management Agency’s “Public Opinion Survey on Disaster Preparedness,” about half of respondents said they “stockpile for disasters.” But fewer than 30% have “actually eaten stockpile food.” Suddenly eating food you’ve never tasted in a disaster is a high psychological hurdle.

This article explains the concrete steps, from planning the tasting event to running it and following up afterward.

Why a Stockpile-Food Tasting Event Is Necessary

Psychological Resistance to “Never-Tasted” Stockpile Food

Picture the meals in a disaster for a moment.

A dark office with the power out. The water’s cut off too. In that situation, you’re handed a pack of alpha-processed rice you’ve never seen and told, “Please eat this.” Honestly, many people won’t have any appetite.

If you already know the taste in normal times, even in a disaster you get a sense of relief—“ah, that taste from before.” This is what psychology calls the “mere-exposure effect”: we tend to feel more favorable toward things that are familiar.

Tasting stockpile food is the work of removing this psychological barrier in advance.

The Effect of Breaking the Disaster Drill Out of Its Rut

Here are the results of surveying employees’ honest opinions of the traditional disaster drill at several companies.

More than 80% feel it’s “boring” or “stale.” There’s no way disaster awareness takes root like this.

Bring in a tasting event, and the atmosphere of the disaster drill changes completely. “Eating” is something everyone likes. Because you learn about disaster preparedness while having fun, participation goes up and it stays in memory.

Synergy with Advancing Rolling Stock

Another big benefit of a tasting event is that it naturally rotates the rolling stock (periodic consumption-and-replenishment cycle) of your stockpile foods.

Put stockpile foods nearing their best-before date into the tasting, and swap in new ones for what you consume. This alone solves the “mass disposal of expired items” problem that many companies face.

Steps for Planning a Tasting Event

Step 1: Clarify the Purpose and Goal

Before planning the event, sort out your purpose. “Doing it just because” is a waste.

Here are examples of setting the purpose.

When the purpose is clear, it’s also easier to get approval from management. “It’s part of the disaster drill” alone is weaker than “It’s a hands-on disaster event aimed at zero stockpile-food waste and advancing rolling stock,” which is more persuasive, right?

Step 2: Decide the Date and Scale

Recommended Timing

How to Decide the Scale

If it’s your first time, it’s recommended to run a trial with just one department first.

• Small (10–20 people): 30 minutes during the lunch break, by department
• Medium (30–50 people): a 60-minute event format, by floor
• Large (50+ people): a half-day program as a company-wide event

Frankly, going company-wide right off the bat means a heavy prep burden. It’s realistic to build a success story at a small scale first, then scale up from the next year.

Step 3: Selecting and Preparing the Stockpile Foods

Choose the foods for the tasting by the following criteria.

• Items within 3–6 months of their best-before date (rolling-stock targets)
• Choose from multiple categories (staple, soup, side dish, snack)
• If there’s a food you’re considering newly introducing, put it in the “comparison tasting” slot

Sample Tasting Menu (50-Person Scale)

Agriture’s dried vegetables get an especially good reception at events like these. Just pouring hot water makes a soup full of Kyoto-grown vegetables, so people are often surprised—“This is stockpile food?” Having something you can find “delicious” even in a disaster is, in itself, a bit of a saving grace.

Step 4: Designing the Program for the Day

For a 60-minute tasting event, a timetable like the following works well.

Point 1: Make the Tasting Time a “Taste-Off” Format

Lining up 2–3 kinds of food in the same category for comparison gets people going. “Which is tastier, Company A’s alpha-processed rice or Company B’s?” naturally becomes a conversation starter.

Point 2: Mix Departments in the Groups

Seat departments that normally don’t interact at the same table. A conversation that starts with “this canned food is good” leads to communication between departments.

Point 3: Include a Cooking Experience

Let participants themselves do the work of pouring hot water into alpha-processed rice or making dried-vegetable soup. The experience of “I made it myself” builds confidence for a disaster.

Tricks to Boost Participation

Announce It as a “Food Event,” Not a “Disaster Drill”

The title of the internal announcement greatly changes participation.

The third title gets by far the best response. Words like “eat,” “tasty,” and “compare” pique many people’s interest.

The knack for the announcement copy, too, is to give off a “this looks fun” vibe.

“At next month’s disaster-stockpile food tasting event, we’ll do a taste-off of 5 kinds of stockpile food. Kyoto-grown dried-vegetable soup is also on the lineup. Come hungry!”

Write it like this and people are more likely to think, “Maybe I’ll give it a go.”

Encourage Management to Attend

When the president or executives take part, the event gains stature.

“The president is eating alpha-processed rice alongside everyone.” This picture works on employee engagement too. It sends the message, “Our company takes disaster preparedness seriously.”

The trick to getting management involved is to give them a role: “Could you share a word on how the tasting was?” Rather than just attending, having a role makes them feel “I’d better go.”

Create a Sense of Participation with Surveys and Voting

Holding a vote after the tasting dramatically raises the event’s entertainment value.

• “Best-Tasting Stockpile Food Grand Prix”
• “Ranking of What You’d Most Want to Eat in a Disaster”
• “Requests for Foods to Add to the Stockpile Next”

Announcing the voting results on the spot gets people going, and the results are also usable as reference data for the next stockpile-food selection.

Follow-Up and Measuring Effectiveness

Evaluation Sheet Template

The evaluation sheet collected after the tasting event gets a higher return rate the simpler it is.

Example Evaluation Items

This evaluation data can be used as grounds for next year’s stockpile-food selection and budget approval.

Internal Sharing and Linking to the Next Event

Be sure to share the event’s results across the company.

What to share is as follows.

• Number of participants and participation rate
• Popularity ranking of stockpile foods
• Participant voices (excerpts of memorable comments)
• Data on the change in disaster awareness
• Plans for the next event and planned improvements

When sharing on Slack or Teams, including plenty of photos raises the view rate. A “photo of everyone eating alpha-processed rice together” connects to a “next time I’ll go” feeling for those who couldn’t attend.

Reflecting It in Rolling Stock

The iron rule is to replenish what you consumed at the tasting by the following week.

Example Replenishment Checklist

Swap out foods that scored low for other products and consider increasing the quantity of high-scoring foods. Running this PDCA cycle gradually completes a stockpile lineup employees “want to eat.”

How to Propose It to Management

How to Present the Cost Estimate

To persuade management, numbers work best.

“For an added cost of 80,000–120,000 yen a year, you can achieve zero stockpile-food waste, higher disaster awareness, and higher employee satisfaction all at once.” This one line will get most executives to give the go-ahead.

Linking with the BCP (Business Continuity Plan)

Positioning the tasting event as part of the BCP adds managerial legitimacy.

• “Conducted as a hands-on BCP drill assuming a Nankai Trough earthquake”
• “Verifying the effectiveness of the disaster-time food-supply structure”
• “A measure to improve employees’ disaster literacy”

For a company that has developed a BCP, the tasting event becomes a measure that enhances its effectiveness, making the budget easier to approve.

Summary

A stockpile-food tasting event is a cost-effective measure that delivers higher disaster awareness, advancing rolling stock, and livelier internal communication all at once.

No large-scale prep is needed. Just gather stockpile foods nearing their best-before date and start with “let’s give it a try” during the lunch break. That alone reliably changes employees’ attitudes toward disaster preparedness.

Why not bring dried-vegetable soup into your tasting event? Agriture’s dried vegetables let you enjoy Kyoto vegetables with just a pour of hot water. The surprise of “this is stockpile food, and it’s this good?” makes for the best possible spark to draw out interest in disaster preparedness.

FAQ

Q1: How much budget does a tasting event require?

The guide is 40,000–60,000 yen per event for a 50-person scale. That’s the figure when using the rolling-stock portion of your stockpile foods, so the additional food-purchase cost is relatively small. Even including consumables like paper plates and cups, it rarely exceeds 100,000 yen.

Q2: Should the tasting event be held during working hours?

An extension of the lunch break (+30 minutes) or holding it during working hours is recommended. Setting it outside working hours drops participation sharply. Holding it during working hours also sends the message that “the company values disaster preparedness,” so schedule it during working hours as much as possible.

Q3: How should we handle employees with food allergies?

Collect allergy information in advance via the sign-up form. On the day, post the ingredient labels of the foods being tasted and prepare allergy-friendly foods separately—that’s best. Many dried vegetables have vegetables as their only ingredient, making them a handy major-allergen-free option.

Q4: How often should the tasting event be held?

Twice a year (September’s Disaster Preparedness Month and March’s earthquake-anniversary month) is recommended. Once a year and the previous learning fades; three or more times and it risks going stale. Combining one of the two with an evacuation drill and making the other tasting-focused strikes a good balance.

Q5: Can companies centered on remote work run it too?

You can either hold it to coincide with in-office days, or mail stockpile foods to employees’ homes and run an “online tasting.” Everyone eats alpha-processed rice on Zoom while talking about disaster preparedness. It’s a little unusual, but companies that have actually done it report plenty of “it got lively” feedback.

Q6: Can holding a tasting event count as a disaster-drill record?

It’s handled separately from a “fire drill,” which requires notifying the fire department, but it can count as a hands-on BCP drill. For Certified Health & Productivity Management Organization recognition too, it can be used as application material as an employee health-awareness measure. Keeping it in the internal record as part of the disaster drill is recommended.

Recommended reading

Sustainable initiatives / Commercial dried vegetables / Product lineup / The foods Gen Z chooses. An era when environmental consideration becomes brand strength / How to Combine Dried Fruit and Nuts: 10 Rules for Boosting Nutritional Value