Activity Report: The Certification Program of Japanese Food and Ingredient Supporter Stores Overseas

On 22^nd December 2011, a webinar on Japanese marine products and tea was held with the participation of restaurant owners and chefs in the UAE who are interested in Japanese food products.

The webinar began with an introduction of the “Certification Program of Japanese Food and Ingredient Supporter Stores Overseas” which JETRO designed to certify overseas restaurants and retail stores that carry and actively using Japanese food and ingredients as official “Japanese Food Supporters” to further promote Japanese food products around the world. After the introduction, a lecture from the experts about marine products and tea was conducted.

The lecture on marine products focused mainly on yellowtail, a major fish species in Japan. For tea, speaker talked about the various types of Japanese tea and the recent trends of drinking tea in Japan.

There was not enough time for questions about fisheries, but participants asked various questions about tea. In particular, there was a lot of interest in matcha green tea, and questions were asked about how to drink matcha green tea and other beverages made with matcha.

JETRO will continuously promote and create activities to encourage more restaurants to actively use Japanese ingredients and increase the number of Japanese food supporter stores.