MUSEUMS run by food manufacturers and other private organisations not only provide food-related information but also a variety of experiential fun and educational programmes.

The museums attract visitors from all walks of life, including families and foreign tourists, who enjoy making doughnuts and other food and watch how food safety inspections are carried out. The museums are on the increase and becoming more diversified.

Taberu Taisetsu Museum in Izumi hosts various educational programmes on food and consumption. The Osaka Izumi Co-operative Society in Sakai opened the facility in April last year. It has five themed zones.

In the zone for food safety, visitors can watch inspectors check food additives and agrochemical residues in glassed-wall inspection rooms.

An exhibition section in the zone on food allergy and microorganisms has adopted a question-and-answer style. Visitors first read questions on panels that they then turn over to check the answers.

The zone for dietary education displays a huge anatomical model of the human body. Visitors can enter it and learn how consumed food is digested in the body from panel displays in the interior.

Slightly more than 20,000 people visit the museum a year. They include many groups of primary school students on school outings.

The facility uses the knowledge and expertise the Osaka Izumi Co-operative Society has accumulated while making efforts to improve food safety, according to Mai Yoshizaki, the manager of the facility’s guide section.

“Visitors can touch many of the displays, as we think it will help children understand food and consumption,” she said.

The facility hosts events for making foods and does experiments on most weekends, often in cooperation with food manufacturers.

A 40-year-old woman frequently visits the facility with her husband and two children. “This facility gives my children a great opportunity to learn, along with their father who is usually busy working and seldom eats with them,” she said.

Duskin, which operates the Mister Donut nationwide fast food franchise, opened Duskin Museum in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, in October. The museum chronologically shows how the company’s doughnuts have become a part of Japan’s food culture since the company opened its first outlet in this country in 1971.

The museum hosts doughnut-making workshops every day. Thirty-two pairs are accepted on a daily basis, and although reservations are accepted up to 60 days in advance, the event is so popular that it is quickly booked out, according to the museum.

The company also runs a cleaning business, and the museum includes the Osoji-kan (Cleaning museum). Visitors can pick up cleaning hints, which may be helpful in ensuring their kitchen and cooking utensils are spotless.

“We want to present the culture related to our products rather than promote them,” a company publicity official said.

Osaka Gas Co. opened a five-storey museum themed on food and living in Osaka, in January last year. Its fourth floor is devoted to experiential programmes that display built-in kitchens and gas appliances. Cooking seminars and other events are held in a kitchen studio with a seating capacity of 100. More than 300,000 people visited the museum last year.

Guided tours are offered at Mizkan Museum in Handa. The museum was opened in November by Mizkan Holdings Co. headquartered in the city to feature the technology and history of vinegar manufacturing, the company’s core business.

One of the highlights is a 20-metre-long reproduction of a cargo ship called bezaisen, which transported vinegar during the Edo period (1603-1867). Visitors can enjoy a virtual reality sail on the ocean.

More than 150 private food-themed museums are said to exist nationwide, and the number is increasing.

“We have recently read and seen more news reports on food, such as falsified food labelling and the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact. So consumers want to learn more about food than ever before,” said Toshio Asakura, director of Ritsumeikan University’s International Research Centre for Gastronomic Science.

Visits to these facilities are sometimes included in sightseeing tours for foreign tourists to help them learn about Japanese food culture.

“These museums will take on a new role of providing food-related information to the global community in the future,” Asakura said.

—The Japan News

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2016