Hakubaku Co., Ltd.
Shigetoshi Nagasawa, President

Nowadays, Japanese food is being seen in a new light, not only by western countries but throughout the world. In the 1970's, a project related to food was started in the U.S. It includes a report that the ideal dietary life for people to live healthy is the eating habit of Japanese people before the Genroku (1688 through 1703) era.

Furthermore, it has also been noted that the reason why lifestyle-related diseases such as cerebral vascular disorders or cardiac diseases are increasing among Japanese people these days may be closely related to the change of eating habit to the western style in the postwar period. In both cases, the basic concept of food in Japan, a country with long living people, was the balanced eating habit centered on grain.

Hakubaku Co., Ltd, which was established in 1941 along with the regulation of barley in time of war, has been consistently engaged in the popularization of grains such as barley up to the present time.

Development of tasty barley meal

Yoshimori Endo, senior managing director, told us about the company's history.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the history of Hakubaku is a history of development and popularization of barley meal that taste good and is easy-to-eat. In the late Showa 20's (1950's), barley was an essential ingredient of the general household diet, and a small quantity was mixed with rice and cooked. However, rice cooked with barley was not very popular because the texture wasn't good."

It was a period when a politician said that "poor people should eat barley," and barley was cheaper than rice. However, it is an ingredient with high nutritional value, and compared with rice, it has four times the calcium, twice the iron, and more than ten times the dietary fiber. The founder and president of the company, Jyutaro Nagasawa, contemplated day and night on how to make the households cook and eat the nutritious barley together with rice.

"Every person who has cooked barley meal will notice that there is a black line in the middle of the barley grain – the black husk line. When barley is cooked with rice, this line is noticeable and gives a poor impression. Then, he came up with the wild idea of removing the black husk line."

The barley grain is split in half along the black husk line, and the exposed black husk line is then removed by grinding machine. This method requires time and effort, but the finished barley without black husk line was "commercialized as Hakubaku Mai because it is barley that is white like rice, and it was a big first step to grow our company" (Senior managing director Endo). The change of the company's name from "Kyonan Seibaku Seifun Co., Ltd." to "Hakubaku Mai Co., Ltd." in 1957, and then to "Hakubaku Co., Ltd." in 1992 shows how seriously focused they are on white barley.

The research and development of the company did not stop there, and continued to advance quickly. When barley and rice are cooked together, the barley floats to the top due to the difference in their specific gravities. The company engaged in the development of the "Beiryu Baku (Unpressed halved pearl barley)" which has the same shape and specific gravity as rice, and the "Haiga Oshimugi (Rolled barley)" which is polished barley with the highly nutritious germ section remaining intact, and these market-leading products kept expanding the demand.

In 1990, the company commercialized the "Honebuto Kazoku" which is barley coated with calcium, a nutrient that Japanese people are lacking, and this new brand has become a popular product.

A wealth of human resources to support the integrated production

The company's products are not just barley products that are cooked with rice, but also cover grains in general such as flour and barley tea, rehydratable and fresh udon, somen or buckwheat noodles, and the "Jyurokkoku Gohan" which uses millets such as foxtail millet and Japanese barnyard millet.

"Various products have been developed through creative planning, but the uniqueness of our company is that we are also working on the development of manufacturing equipment for the new products at the same time. This is because existing general-purpose equipment cannot be used, and also because the development of original equipment such as the barley black husk line sorting machine with image processing of each barley grain, or the high-speed weighing and automatic binding machine for rehydratable noodles are also supporting the production of our original products," said Endo, the senior managing director.

In Japan, most of the noodle manufacturers produce only noodles, but the company is engaged from growing raw materials and milling. It performs integrated manufacturing from maturing through drying, packaging, and shipping. "We have the largest facility in Japan as a single factory of barley and rehydratable noodles. Our daily production volume reaches 120 tons of raw barley processing and 25 tons of rehydratable noodles."

Endo, the senior managing director has a doctor's degree in engineering, and the company's huge advantage is the wealth of human resources ranging from the liberal arts to sciences. Workplaces are available where each person can flourish in their areas of specialty, starting with research groups from basic research to product development, technology development, quality control, system control, sales, and so on.

The company's policy bore fruits such as the "Production method of malt barley tea" and the "Production method of hand-wrung style rehydratable noodles" which received the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency Director's Award, the "Method and equipment to dry rehydratable noodles" which received the Science and Technology Prize from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the "Honebuto Kazoku" which received the Food Industry Technology Achievement Award, and the "High-speed weighing and automatic binding machine for rehydratable noodles" which received the Kanto Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry Director's Award.

Taking all possible measures to ensure the safety of food

The Ichikawa Daimon station, which is the nearest train station to the company, is 20 minutes away from Kofu, Yamanashi prefecture by JR Minobu line limited express. It is situated at the southwestern end of Kofu Basin, surrounded by deep mountains, and it does not look like a place where one of the best grain companies in Japan is located. However, the view of buildings such as the six-story white barley rice factory, milling factory, barley tea factory, and the three-story research and development center indicates that the company is rooted in this region, and it has been developing with the regional community.

As food safety is becoming an issue these days, what sort of measures is the company taking?

"With the present domestic production capacity, we have to depend on imports from abroad for barley, wheat, and millet. The wheat for noodles is obtained through contract grower farms and commercialized at the Australian factory. In response to the growing popularity of Japanese food worldwide, one third of the Australian factory production is shipped to Japan, and the rest is shipped to the western countries. Other than this, for products that come in through other sources, we perform detailed inspections by ourselves in addition to the inspection system by public institutions, and take all possible measures such as disclosing the production history of the raw materials."

Endo, the senior managing director says that his wish is to earn the customers' trust, so they would say that "this product is safe because it was made by Hakubaku."

As grain is attracting attention these days as food that promotes health, safety measures are the top priority of the company. At the same time, one of the challenges that the company must also deal with in the future is to introduce various recipes that use millet, in order to convey the appeal of millet such as its good flavor and ease of eating.

Hakubaku Co., Ltd.:
Manufacturing/sales/product development of grains such as barley

1351 Saishoji, Masuho-cho, Minami komagun, Yamanashi-ken
Japan 400-0598
TEL: +81-556-22-8989
FAX: +81-556-22-5467
Capital: 98 million yen
Employees: 336 people
http://www.hakubaku.co.jp