ASP Co., Ltd.
Company Overview:
While inheriting Japan's important regional foods as part of our food culture, we place great importance on using up all the ingredients, and we design optimal processing methods to enhance the nutritional value and shelf life of agricultural and marine products.
The video explains how Japan has traditionally valued color throughout the four seasons, and how a food culture that enhances preservation through methods such as drying and fermentation has focused on nutrients. The platform's efforts to create local healthy foods by combining various technologies have become a system that contributes to reducing CO2 emissions and improving food self-sufficiency.
The actual exhibits will feature foods made from vegetable powder produced through sterilization and powderization techniques that can store nutrients while allowing people to enjoy their natural colors; local healthy foods that focus on nutrients, such as sake lees from the production of sake, a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage product that is high in protein and contains ceramide; athletes' food based on Akita's kiritanpo, which contains resistant starch; and foods based on umeboshi plums, which are high in citric acid.
Exhibit Contents:
By remaking local food culture into functional foods that meet current needs, participants will be able to preserve their food culture, while also learning that previously unused agricultural products and processing by-products can become valuable ingredients if they change their perspective.
Experience & Highlights:
・Food processing technology: In order to ensure a stable supply of food in the event of bad weather or a disaster, it is necessary to use a combination of powdering technology and quick freezing to store nutrients. Processed foods are sterilized by heating for hygiene reasons, but this leads to deterioration of color, flavor, and nutrients, so weakly acidic hypochlorous acid water and low-temperature heating and quick freezing control technology are effective.
・Vegetable powder: We are exhibiting sweets such as chocolate and boro that use the natural colors of vegetables without using synthetic coloring agents. We will introduce ways to use vegetables other than for taste and nutrition.
・Kiritanpo: A protein bar that uses a processing method that increases resistant starch, which suppresses blood sugar spikes (a state in which blood sugar levels rise or fall rapidly) that prevent diabetes, and a variety of rice, and uses low-fat, high-protein sesame seeds, a by-product of sesame oil extraction.
・Sake lees: Sake lees are a high-quality, healthy food that is rich in ceramides and peptides produced by fermenting rice and has a high protein content. However, the dietary habits of pickling in sake lees and making sake lees soup are declining, making sake lees less widely used. Fermentation methods that enhance the active ingredients are expected to add new value.
By optimally designing multiple elements such as food processing technology, functional research and development, hygiene management technology, and a supply chain with short transportation distances, combined with the local food culture based on Japanese cuisine and the high quality of locally produced ingredients, we aim to improve food self-sufficiency and reduce CO2 emissions with zero incineration by making full use of agricultural and marine products without waste.
An increasing number of students are interested in passing on local food culture and reducing food waste, and by working together with us to develop products, they will gain a sense of affinity with food and agriculture and deepen their understanding of the relationship between production and consumption and traditional food culture.
We aim to spread this system, which maintains reproduction prices and contributes to supporting local circular economies, not only in Japan but around the world, in order to solve food problems and promote health.
Contact:
https://www.agrisp.jp/contact/