Visited farmer-produced barbecue event

Sakura (cherry blossom) has fully been bloomed in the Kanto region of Japan last week, and it was wonderful season for seeing Sakura. How are you getting along?

JapanCROPs staff visited GFK which is agricultural company located Asahi-city of Chiba prefecture on March 31. GFK produces mainly sanchu (Korean lettuce) and vegetable.

This time, we had joined the barbecue event "Blue Sky BBQ" which is held by GFK every month.

We drove to the place by car, and when we reached and stopped the car in the parking lot in front of large hydroponics facility, we realized that it was the venue for the barbecue.The facility was for sanchu, and we enjoyed the barbecue inside the facility.

It was perfectly farmer-produced event where the participants can enjoy barbecue inside hydroponics facility for sanchu and all ingredients (vegetables, mushroom, zucchini, pork) are provided by farmers centered upon GFK.

In addition to barbecue, vegetable curry, fried noodles, salads and shabu-shabu were also served, all of us including small baby could enjoy eating many foods. In the facility, we could pluck and eat sanchu anytime, and also we could bring sanchu home. The event is held once a month, and has continued over 3 years.

As well as eating barbcque, a concert of bossa nova was held, and strawberry and ice cream were served as dessert, in order to keep participants from being bored.

When we talked with Namikawa-san who run GFK, he mentioned that he wants to provide the place where many people can come with family and they can feel relieved from day-to-day busy life by through enjoying this new experience.

At present, Japanese government has been promoting a sixth industrialization approach in which agricultural producers (farmers) are involved not only in production but also in distribution, sales, and services. And this barbecue event can be considered as one of the sixth industrialization . And he mentioned that he want to continue this kinds of event by utilizing the agricultural products which he can provide with confidence, as he figure out what he can do as of now.

We, JapanCROPs team could hear valuable story as well as have nice experience, through this barbecue event. Thank you very much , Namikawa-san and GFK team for this opportunity.