Japan’s Menu of FoodTech to Nourish the Planet
Nutrition crises have left millions of people around the world hungry, underpinned by sustained high levels of acute food insecurity, inadequate access to essential services and poor health conditions.[1]
By employing cutting-edge technologies to transform the entire food chain—from production and processing to distribution and consumption—companies and researchers in Japan are finding solutions that could help to address food security challenges around the world.
Dubbed “FoodTech,” the application of technology and innovation to the food chain has yielded a diversity of solutions. From innovations such as allergen-free eggs, spoons which amplify salt taste, and unique films which enable “soil-less” farming, Japan’s contributions stand out. Two companies—IntegriCulture Inc. and KaisouLab Co., Ltd.—exemplify this diverse menu of the future.
Tokyo-based Integriculture Inc. is a unique startup aiming to be a platformer for cellular agriculture (cell-ag). Cell-ag uses biotechnology to produce agricultural products such as meat and eggs, providing sustainable options to meet growing global demand while optimizing resource efficiency.[2]
IntegriCulture’s proprietary CulNet® system can be used to grow any type of targeted cells—birds, mammals, fish, crustaceans, insects— broadening potential applications in food, cosmetics, leather, pharmaceuticals and more.[3]
To demonstrate the system's efficiency, the company has successfully grown duck liver-derived and chicken-derived muscle cells.[4] In addition, the company has successfully commercialized an egg-derived skincare ingredient for cosmetics.[5]
The system deploys a central tank where targeted cells such as animal muscle or fat are grown, connected to a group of “feeder” tanks growing liver, placenta or other types of cells. These feeder bioreactors produce and supply serum alternatives, such as growth factors, to the target cells to stimulate growth and differentiation. By mimicking how a living organism generates growth, this “networked co-culture” bypasses the costly and complex process of extracting and purifying animal serums in cell cultivation, explains CEO Yuki Hanyu.[6]
“Another big advantage of the CulNet® system is consumer and regulatory acceptance since there is no bio engineering involved,” explains Hanyu. “Most cultured food companies treat their media formulas as top-secret IP, but with CulNet®, users choose the cells in their feeder bioreactors and therefore own the formula themselves. The IP sits with the users, not with us.”
The startup is working to make a universally accessible infrastructure for cell-ag. It already offers a world-first B2B marketplace for cell-ag materials and equipment, provides contract-based R&D, and has established an open-innovation consortium called "CulNet Consortium" to develop new cellular agriculture user supplier.[7] The goal is to build “a supply-chain as service” for cell-ag.
Hanyu notes that Japan has a strong manufacturing base, especially rapid prototyping and hardware development needed when scaling up cell-ag. In addition, the country and its start-ups missed an earlier investment boom that has started to decelerate elsewhere, ironically a boon for the Japanese sector.
“Several years ago, other cell-ag companies raised hundreds of millions of dollars—we couldn’t, even though we started around the same time. At first, that looked like a disadvantage. But as the hype cycle dropped into the trough of disillusionment, it flipped into an advantage: Japanese ag-cell companies, including us, don’t have inflated expectations to unwind” says Hanyu.
“Because we didn’t have cash to burn, we had to nail down a viable business model and feasible unit economics much earlier. And we did—starting with cell-ag cosmetics. Now, while those heavily funded companies have burnt through money with little revenue to show, we’re already generating sales. Seeing the difficulties of our competitors, our strategy is not to scale until we find something worthy to scale.”
Another FoodTech area lies at the crossroads of technology and tradition: seaweed—an ancient Japanese food ingredient cultivated for centuries with records that it was tribute to the imperial family in the 8th century.[8]
Today, marine algae are attracting global interest for their potential to improve marine ecosystems and absorb carbon. Seaweed is fast-growing, low-impact and highly nutritious, requiring no fertilizer and pesticides and its global production now exceeds 35 million tons for use as food, medicine, beauty products, packaging and biofuels.[9]
Tokushima-based KaisouLab Co., Ltd., part of Bunsen Co. seafood company, developed a system to cultivate organic-certified seaweed all-year around in land-based facilities using only seawater and sunlight.
“Seaweed farming has long existed in Japan, but the production of aosa seaweed—the main ingredient for our group company—peaked about 40 years ago and has since fallen to less than one-third of that level,” says Tomoki Tanaka, CEO for KaisouLab Co., Ltd.
“Facing the risk of losing our key raw material—we felt compelled to find a solution ourselves.”
To make land-based cultivation viable for aosa, the company worked with university researchers to pair the winter-growing, green-colored seaweed with akanesou, a ruby-red seaweed which thrives in warmer seasons. By growing both species in the same tanks as a two-crop system, they were able to farm seaweed all year long, explains Tanaka.
Cultivating seaweed in mesh-covered pools filled with filtered, but nutrient-rich seawater, rather than in open waters have two distinct advantages: keeping the product free of water and air-borne contaminants including potential allergens and greater ease in managing production processes and quality, explains Tanaka.
The system has the potential to be replicated with the many other types of seaweed and their industrial applications,[10] found in coasts around the world.
“Given the current state of ocean water quality and the marine environment, I believe there is great significance in expanding seaweed aquaculture,” says Tanaka.
“Many people around the world do not recognize seaweed as a food ingredient, or as something to be consumed for its nutritional components. But seaweed is such a nutritionally well-balanced superfood that I hope more people will take an interest in it with Japanese cuisine continuing to spread around the world.”[11]
The vision of companies like KaisouLab Co., Ltd and IntegriCulture Inc. to bring food into the future through technology is backed firmly by the Japanese government.
In 2020, it established the Public-Private Council for FoodTech with around 1,600 members from food companies, startups, research institutions, and government ministries to address shared challenges and develop new markets.[12] The engagement has been stepped up. In November 2025, the government named FoodTech a national strategic priority field—on par with other vital areas such as AI and quantum technologies–for growth and public investment.[13]
Japan has key advantages in the field. Besides its general depth and strength in relevant sciences such as microbiology, chemistry, and nutrition, it has a wealth of traditional food techniques and knowhow, such as in fermentation, which can be developed. The archipelago boasts abundant biological and genetic resources resulting from its diverse geography. And its advanced manufacturing capabilities is vital for prototyping and scaling up innovations.
And it’s not just startups, the country’s many established global food brands are ambitiously engaged in FoodTech.
Against this backdrop, Japan’s food system challenges have also become a catalyst for innovation. Like many advanced economies, the country relies heavily on imports, not only for food itself, but also for key inputs such as fertilizers and animal feed.
In the context of global supply-chain uncertainty and sustainability pressures, this reality has accelerated efforts in Japan to develop new, more efficient approaches to food production, positioning FoodTech as a strategic area for long-term resilience.
These efforts carry significance well beyond Japan’s borders. Japanese cuisine is widely admired around the world, and innovations that strengthen how it is produced have the potential to influence global food culture as much as they do domestic food security.
Traditional Japanese cuisine has been recognized as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage for its deep connection to nature, respect for natural resources, and celebration of regionality, seasonality and communality.[14] Japan has even given humanity a fifth basic flavour. After sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, we now have umami to describe rich and savoury. The number of Japanese restaurants overseas are on the rise. Food exports such as fresh seafood, wagyu beef, rice, whiskies, sake and other delicacies are booming.
With FoodTech innovations, Japan’s contributions to feeding the planet look set to grow.
