The JA TENDO Export Promotion Council was established on May 30, 2022, with the aim of increasing exports of Tohoku region farm products. While the Tohoku region has long been known for growing various types of fruit, there had been no strategic or systematic regional effort to expand fruit exports, despite the fact that exports of fruit from Japan as a whole have been growing in recent years. Individual farmers and agriculture distribution companies handle export of fruit on their own, but the region is far from being a leader in the export of fruit from Japan. For this reason, we have established a new mechanism for the export of farm produce, in coordination with various agricultural enterprises and with the cooperation of fruit exporters both in Japan and overseas. This mechanism at present only concerns produce from Yamagata Prefecture, but will be extended to all of the Tohoku region in the future. We plan to expand our efforts beyond mere distribution to include the production of agricultural products for overseas exports as well.
Although there is a strong demand for Japanese peaches in Greater China around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, most peaches in Japan have already been harvested by that time. Yamagata Prefecture, however, produces many late variety peaches. We have been highly successful at gathering late variety peaches from the region and beyond for overseas export.
Most of our exports are done by our council members using controlled atmosphere marine containers, allowing us to export Japanese fruit to destinations in the Asian region under high quality conditions.
Popular Shonai persimmons from the Shonai area of Yamagata Prefecture were exported directly to Thailand, undergoing astringency removal during transport in marine containers.
(As of September, 2023)
| Japan Agricultural Cooperatives "JA TENDO" in Tendo-shi | JA TENDO FOODS, K.K. |
| Japan Food & Agriculture Cooperative Organization (JFACO) | ALLIED Corporation |
| SHINJUKU VEGEFRU CO., LTD. | Japan Agricultural Cooperatives "JA Shonai-Midori" in Sakata-shi |
| The Distribution Economics Institute of Japan | OUHA CO., LTD. |
| Data Lab Corp. |
Cherries
Beni-O, Beni-Shuho, Sato-Nishiki, others
Melons
Red pulp and green pulp
Watermelons
Large and small
Peaches
Grapes
Shine Muscat, Kyoho, Pione, Delaware
Japanese pears
European pears
Claude Blanchet
Persimmons
Apples
Fuji, others
In the future, we will be conducting the projects listed below.