{"id":161,"date":"2024-08-05T23:17:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T14:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/?p=161"},"modified":"2024-10-14T09:51:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T00:51:10","slug":"foodtech-hub-hokkaido","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/blog\/161\/","title":{"rendered":"FoodTech hub \u2014 Hokkaido!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On April 21st, Startup City Sapporo organized a startup ecosystem partnership webinar with Humburg in collaboration with\u00a0Japamburg<\/a>, JETRO and Sapporo Innovation Lab!<\/p>\n

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Full recording is available on\u00a0our youtube channel<\/a>!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

206% food self-sufficiency rate<\/h1>\n

Japan is famous for the very low food self-sufficiency rate \u2014 its calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate was only\u00a037%<\/strong>\u00a0in 2020.<\/p>\n

Did you know that Hokkaido\u2019s food self-sufficiency rate is\u00a0206%<\/strong>, the highest in Japan?\u00a0Department of Agriculture Hokkaido Government<\/a>\u00a0states that Hokkaido contributes 23% of Japan\u2019s food self-sufficiency rate, and performs the great role as a food producer.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0the report<\/a>, \u201cHokkaido makes significant contributions to a stable food supply in Japan, and produces the largest volume of products in many of the major agricultural and livestock sectors in Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Department of Agriculture
\nHokkaido Government, \u201cAgriculture in Hokkaido Japan<\/a>\u201d, p.5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) in Hokkaido<\/a>\u00a0is looking for new business models utilizing FoodTech and offering support for the PoC opportunities.<\/p>\n

FoodTech startups collaborating with VCs based in Hokkaido<\/h1>\n

In 2021,\u00a0POLAR SHORTCUT<\/a>, a fund focusing on Seed startups in Sapporo started investing to startups based in Hokkaido.<\/p>\n

One of the portfolio companies is\u00a0Fant<\/a>, developing a platform that connects hunters and building the right supply chain for gibier.<\/p>\n

Another portfolio company is\u00a0TREASURE IN STOMACH<\/a>, baking vegan & gluten-free pastry.<\/p>\n

Several funds and VCs already built deal flows for FoodTech startups, and Hokkaido is targeting the following two startup categories :
\n1. startups that promote growth and industrialization in the fields of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, which support local communities
\n2. startups that promote the development of food-related industries that utilize regional resources<\/p>\n

Tokachi \u2014 the foremost food production base<\/h1>\n
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Tokachi has over 2,000 hours of sunshine a year and a cultivated acreage of 39.4 hectares per farmstead (about 18 times the national average). With large-scale farm crops including wheat, beans and potatoes, Tokachi is also home to advanced agricultural research, hosting an agricultural university and a number of agriculture-related businesses and research institutions. (reference<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

LAND, a startup support space in Tokachi<\/h2>\n

Tokachi Foundation (\u3068\u304b\u3061\u8ca1\u56e3) recently launched\u00a0LAND<\/strong><\/a>, a startup support space in order to validate new business ideas.<\/p>\n

Last year Tokachi Foundation signed a partnership agreement with\u00a0AgVenture Lab<\/a>, an open innovation lab that empowers startups solving social issues around \u201cfood\u201d, \u201cagriculture\u201d and \u201clivelihood\u201d. In collaboration with\u00a0The JA Group<\/a>, AgVenture Lab is accelerating collaboration among corporates in order to connect AgTech, FinTech, FoodTech and LifeTech for regional revitalization.<\/p>\n

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Photo by\u00a0Ryan Song<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tokachi Business Challenge for early stage startups<\/h2>\n

In order to support early stage startups, Tokachi Foundation is offering financial incentives for founders strengthening local brands with\u00a0a subsidy program<\/a>\u00a0that cover 100% of expense.<\/p>\n

Pitch contest by student entrepreneurs<\/h2>\n

A scholarship<\/a>\u00a0for student entrepreneurs named \u201cLAND scholarship\u201d is also available in Tokachi. Some of the selected student entrepreneurs can participate a 3-month long program to acquire business skills.<\/p>\n

Going through regulations to start selling food<\/h2>\n

One of the biggest barriers for international FoodTech startups could be going through regulations. Whenever a company or an individual want to start selling a new product, food safety inspection for the product is required.<\/p>\n

Tokachi Foundation has\u00a0a facility<\/a>\u00a0to inspect food premises with\u00a0a clear set of pricing<\/a>. On top of the facility, it also has\u00a0equipments for food processing<\/a>\u00a0such as vacuum freeze dryer, cross beater mill, retort sterilizer, texture analyzer, etc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hokkaido, the biggest prefecture in Japan has a potential \u2014 offering PoC opportunities, building industrial clusters such as FoodTech, SpaceTech, BioTech, and HealthTech, and welcoming startups \u2014 do you want to be the frontier to explore opportunities in Hokkaido?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 21st, Startup City Sapporo organized a startup ecosystem partnership webinar with Humburg in collaboration with\u00a0Japamburg, JETRO and Sapporo Innovation Lab! Full recording is available on\u00a0our youtube channel! 206% food self-sufficiency rate Japan is famous for the very low food self-sufficiency rate \u2014 its calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate was only\u00a037%\u00a0in 2020. Did you know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-blog.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startuphokkaido.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}