"Japan Agriculture" (Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo), which is engaged in the export business of Japanese agricultural products, is currently making efforts to expand overseas sales channels for apples produced in Aomori Prefecture.

Under the concept of "aggressive agriculture", the company sells Japanese agricultural products to overseas countries such as Southeast Asia. In 2016, Shohei Naito, who was 24 years old, played a central role in establishing a corporation to appeal to his classmates in high school and university. Akihito Kawai, one of the founding members, moved to Hirosaki from 2017 (Heisei 29) in charge of the Aomori area and is engaged in apple production and shipping.

According to Kawai, Japanese agriculture currently operates in two areas nationwide. It is said that it is Shine Muscat of Yamanashi and apple of Aomori. We have staff in each area, and eight people from the Kanto area are now living in Aomori.

“I didn't even know how to make apples at first,” says Kawai. It was said that there were times when the apple farmers I visited did not hear the story. Kawai recalls, "There were times when I didn't understand the Tsugaru dialect."

In consideration of the tastes of overseas consumers, the company cultivates it using a high-density planting method that makes apples specialized for small balls. "By handling everything from production to distribution, it is easy to manage inventory and improve the efficiency of the entire process," says Kawai. In addition to using the abandoned cultivated land as its own farm, the company aims to expand production by improving the efficiency of cultivation and fruit picking work by hiring mainly local people who have experience in fruit farming.

Currently, Aomori apples exported by the company have the largest local market share in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, and are also exporting to Taiwan and Hong Kong. "We distribute Japanese agricultural products under our own brand called Essence, and we have more than 500 permanent shelves in Thailand. Local staff are stationed at each store, and we mainly hold remote meetings." Kawai.

On August 21, we held a briefing for the workers this year. It is said that about 20 workers gathered were mainly housewives and students, and many of them applied because they were attracted to a shift-based environment in which they could easily work according to their daily lives. On that day, after the briefing session, we actually worked on the selection of apples.

Mr. Kawai said, "We will protect the varieties of Maid in Japan and transform them into "Mourical agriculture" by not only developing new sales channels that will deliver Japan's excellent agricultural products to the world, but also promoting license business." "I want to".