We hope that becoming familiar from childhood with how foods are made will encourage an interest in monozukuri (manufacturing). We also hope that children will learn the importance of diet and become more fond of eating fish. With these hopes, we have opened our four food manufacturing plants –Hachioji General Plant, Himeji General Plant, Anjo Plant and Tobata Plant – to local elementary school children for factory visits to learn about food. (We do not conduct tours for the general public. We are also not accepting elementary school tours at this time.)

Tour of Anjo Plant

Visiting an Elementary School to Give a Lesson (Himeji General Plant)

On November 17, 2022, four employees from Himeji General Plant visited Yagi Elementary School in Himeji City and gave a lesson to its 18 third-graders. In the last 3 years, a lecture was given by visiting the School as a countermeasure against COVID-19, incorporating such programs as a virtual factory tour and white gown try-on experience. After being given a lecture on the production process of tube-shaped Japanese fish cakes (chikuwa), the children touched and got to feel its ingredient, fish paste (surimi), and tasted freshly baked chikuwa, enabling them to gain a factory-tour-like experience.

Saiki City, Oita Prefecture, where the Oita Marine Biological Technology Center is located, has always had a thriving fishery industry. The Oita Marine Biological Technology Center, which specializes in aquaculture, has been established in such an area, and in order to better acquaint the community with this research facility, it accepts elementary school children on educational field trips and offers workplace experience to junior high school students. The program has been designed so that it will motivate children to take an interest in fishery and aquaculture, in the hopes that future researchers will be born from those who take part.

Field Trips for Elementary School Children

On November 28, 2019, the Oita Marine Biological Technology Center welcomed seven third-graders from Matsuura Elementary School, Saiki City, and conducted a program for the children to get to know the research being conducted on fish. After hearing a presentation on the Center and aquaculture research, the children observed the test fish being bred at the Center, as well as experiencing fish feeding and looking at the plankton used for the feed under microscopes. The children asked many questions on fish feeding and the feed and seemed to be very interested in fish research. Afterward, the children sent in many letters as feedback.

Workplace Experience for Junior High School Students

On August 1, 2019, the Oita Marine Biological Technology Center conducted a workplace experience program as part of an exchange sponsored by the Oita Prefecture Junior High School Cultural Association. 25 students from around ten schools from Beppu City, Oita City, and Saiki City participated. In addition to taking a tour around the Center and looking through microscopes, the students experienced sampling lab work in which they measured and dissected the young yellowtail. The program was a huge success with the students asking a lot of questions and surprising even the Center’s researchers with their enthusiasm for conducting the lab work.

Nagasaki Shipyard hosts workplace tours as part of field trips for local high school students. In fiscal 2021, Nagasaki Shipyard welcomed a total of 76 students from two high schools in Nagasaki City, explained the types of ships and construction processes and took them on a tour inside the factory.

Workplace tours for high school students

FY2021 Results

The Nissui Group company, King & Prince Seafood Corp. (USA, “K&P”) has been holding 2-day programs called “Seafood University.” The program communicates an overview of K&P, the products of K&P, selling tips, and initiatives for sustainability through the plant tour and the shrimp boat educational cruise.
Employees, suppliers and customers of K&P take part in this activity, which began in 1976, and more than 4,400 people, to date, have “graduated” from the “Seafood University.” This provides an opportunity to communicate K&P’s initiatives by involving the stakeholders, and has been recognized by the participants as being “an outstanding training program, standing out from other manufacturers who do similar training.”