Creating products using a workshop with a spectacular view and abundant natural energy

The workshop is located on a hill overlooking the Sea of Japan near the Kariba-Motsuta Municipal Nature Park on the Futoro Coast of Setsunamachi, with a wonderful view. The only means of transportation is by private car, and it takes about 3 hours and 30 minutes (226 km) from New Chitose Airport, the "air gateway to Hokkaido," and about 2 hours (134 km) from Hakodate Airport, making it "not an easy place to reach.

Located at the westernmost tip of Hokkaido, Setona is also known as the "Windy City," and the town is making progress in the use of clean energy, with as many as 24 windmills for power generation built to take advantage of the strong winds blowing from the Sea of Japan. The building where the workshop will be located was developed about 30 years ago as a vacation home that utilized natural energy and eliminated fossil fuels, along with wind power generation, which was still a rarity at the time.

This building was supposed to serve as a refrigerator (ice house) for the villa area from spring to summer by storing water and freezing it during the winter and using the cool air from the ice, but the development of the villa area was halted due to the Hokkaido Southwest Offshore Earthquake and other factors, and the ice house has been preserved by local volunteers without being used as an ice house since then. The Takahashi's felt a sense of destiny when they encountered this building, which seemed to "represent the climate of the town of Setonamachi," and decided to renovate the one-story building, which was not large by any means, by dividing it into two floors for meat processing and production, confectionery production, and a store.

The most important part of the workshop, the ripening room for cured ham and dry sausages, uses equipment that circulates cold water to cool the room stably and can later be committed to an ice room system. By circulating chilled water of around 10°C in the radiator and creating a cool space, the temperature of the product is maintained even if the ambient air temperature changes slightly. This equipment is suitable for storing food products that need to mature slowly and for cold storage environments.

In this wonderful region, we are looking to create products that take advantage of Hokkaido's attractive food ingredients and climate, while also looking into manufacturing methods that utilize natural energy in the future.