Published on Tokachi Foundation HP
Our company’s CEO Atsushi Kano participated in the event “Early Stage Talk with Coffee & Beer,” organized by the Tokachi Foundation, and MIJ Labo was featured in the event’s digest.
The translation of the company’s introduction at the event is as follows:
Meat Image Japan (MIJ) is promoting a project to establish an objective evaluation method for beef carcass grading as a global standard to prove the superiority of Japanese Wagyu beef and to encourage exports. MIJ, headquartered at Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, is developing the “MIJ Camera,” a beef carcass cross-section imaging device, an analysis software, and a carcass image database, utilizing the intellectual property owned by the university.
When the MIJ Camera photographs the cross-section of a beef carcass, AI uploads the outline of the loin core to the cloud. According to the company, this eliminates human subjectivity from beef carcass grading and enables the collection of effective data for proper evaluation with minimal effort. The company plans to make the analysis fee of 1,000 yen per cow its primary source of revenue.
This grant will allow the company to travel overseas, where there is a considerable beef market. They have installed MIJ cameras in Japan (Hokkaido, Iwate, and Fukushima prefectures), the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.
In the future, the company plans to develop HACCP-compliant slaughterhouses and introduce remote auction systems and remote relative trading systems, aiming to ensure food safety and “integration of slaughter and auction.” If the remote auction system can be introduced, the ecological transportation distance of cattle will be shortened, and the transportation and travel costs borne by producers will be reduced.
Mr. Kano said, “If the export of competitive beef from Tokachi increases, it will lead to a rise in the number of slaughterhouses and the creation of jobs, and we can expect a revitalization of the livestock industry in the Tokachi region.”
For more details on the event, check here (Japanese only).
