On April 5, three women living in Aomori started selling "Minna no Snack," a snack for pet dogs using ingredients from Aomori Prefecture.

The same product that pet dogs and their owners can eat together. It was designed by Naoko Fujiwara, a self-employed worker from Hyogo, who moved to Hirosaki in December last year, and was supervised by Akali Tanaka, a dog trainer for domestic dogs, and Masako Abo, a pet food teacher. It features no added chemical seasoning and preservatives and no sugar or oil.

After graduating from high school, Mr. Fujiwara moved to Sendai, which was damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake, after working at a guesthouse and a roadside station in Okinawa, hoping that he could give something back when he was damaged by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. While working at a restaurant, he said that he started to interact with Aomori apple farmers at events. “When I started thinking about changing jobs, I asked an apple farmer to call me, and last year I went to Hirosaki many times to help with farm work,” says Fujiwara.

After moving to Hirosaki, he was thinking about making sweets using apples, but Mr. Fujiwara said, ``Since processed products such as apple juice and jam are commonplace, when I was worried about making another food, pet food at a home center I got the idea that pets are eating apples in Aomori, which led to product development."

“When I consulted with Mr. Tanaka who I just met, I was introduced to Mr. Abo and taught me that apples are a food that pets can eat, and they also taught me ideas for recipes,” says Mr. Fujiwara. The prototype was made to be improved by the dogs of the training class "Wanko Youchien" run by Tanaka.

"At first, it was a thick chunk of dried apples and sticks that were thick like bones, but they were sliced into small pieces and processed into small pieces so that even small dogs could eat them, and we made improvements to complete it," Tanaka said. Mr. "Dog food is not delicious for humans to eat, but this product has a taste and is delicious."

The lineup includes "dried apples" (10 grams) of dried apples, "Glissini" (15 grams) of apple skin, domestic wheat and whole grain (above, 320 yen), and "seasonal vegetables". There are three types of "vegetable cookies", and "vegetable cookies" are targeted for release in April.

Mr. Fujiwara said, "I can't mass-produce each one by hand, but I'm happy to see the jumping dogs and owners happy. 20% of the sales go to support contraceptive surgery for protective dogs and cats. I would like to focus on initiatives that lead to improvement."

Currently, only online sales are possible, but in the future it will be sold at general stores in Hirosaki.