Japanese Sake Miscellaneous #35 Sake dregs recycling case

Feb 3, 2022

Sake dregs are a good thing, but nowadays, due to changes in lifestyles, only a minority of them are consumed in cooking, and at least half of them are turned into industrial waste. How to reduce waste, create added value and turn it into new products is a topic for sake brewers and localities.

Echigo fermented joint business - Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture is a "fermentation and brewing town", the city's Bailu Brewery, たちばな Honpo (miso), the prefectural soy sauce association, and the agricultural platform cooperated on this project, trying to use the fermentation owned by each other. Technology, hopes to reduce the 10,000 metric tons of waste produced by the food manufacturing industry in the prefecture to zero. With the subsidy of Nagaoka City for the development of bio-industry by cultivating fermentation technology, the rice koji mixed with rice glutinous rice and raw soy sauce/miso is fermented to make "Kushizuki no vegetarian", which is used to pickle the pesticide-free lettuce that is scheduled to be scrapped. Made into "Kushizuka", these two products will be sold in large supermarkets in the future.

INAHOSakeLees – It is not uncommon for brands to use wine dregs to make toners and beauty serums, but it is worth noting when considering the production site and packaging of skin care products. The production site is a defunct elementary school on the Osumi Peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture, and the school building is used as a factory. The care product carton is a paper Bagasse made of bagasse by Wujo Paper, which does not use any wood and organochlorine compounds for bleaching, and has been certified as environmentally friendly bagasse pulp. As for sake lees, it is from Yoshida Brewery in Ishikawa Prefecture.

Inventory of sake rice turned into restaurant breakfast – The previous article Jiu Miao mentioned how the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic affected the inventory and production of Japanese sake and sake rice, and the 2020-produced sake rice purchased by Takasago Brewery, Asahikawa City, Hokkaido, also has a large inventory. Comet with 60% milled rice has a refreshing taste, less sweetness, less stickiness, and a unique bubble texture. The restaurant uses it in the breakfast menu from February 1, 2022: saffron-style stewed rice, Italian fried rice ball Arancini , Chicken Wings and Ginseng Chicken Soup, French Rice Pudding. Breakfast is not cheap at 1,800 yen per person. You can eat it once, and then go to AEON next door or a nearby coffee shop for food on other days (Yoshinori coffee in Higashikawa-cho has a branch in front of Asahikawa Station).