I am a five star meister Masato Kaneko. It is privilege for me to be here and be able tointroduce Japanese (sticky) rice which is a sauce of food culture in Japan.
As I modestly said now, there is an institution for license system called “the RiceMeister” which is a certification given to the person who have a clear view of evaluation
concerning the rice property. We could say it, license given to sommelier in the wine
world. There are three-star grade (3810 people has been certified) and five-star grade(240 people has been certified) in its system. Recently, TV and Radio program haswidely taken this topic especially being highlighted the rice educational events which
are held in elementary school throughout Japan.
Then, let me introduce the history regarding Japanese rice, which goes back to the 2500
years ago to trace it. The rice has be known as the three staple foods, that is, rice,wheat and corn, those are not only rich in balanced nutrition but also have taken
principal role in supporting the environment of damp ground and a variety of living
things.
That good-old-days’ fertile environment has fell into oblivion nowadays, because of the
agricultural chemical and chemical fertilizer which have been believed to sustain theeffective harvest under the mission of agricultural improvement.
To overcome this critical adversity, the producer has rather highlighted the aspects of“production of safe rice”, “preservation of biodiversity in the rice production” and“improvement in its savoriness” instead of the rice yield per acre, mainly because theenvironmental policy such as encouragement of incorporating organic and traditional
paddy field farming has been inflated into Japanese domestic producers.
Recently, in Europe, Russia and America, Japanese foods such as Sushi, Sashimi andTempura have been watched with keen interest by those people. The typical recipes
for rice are covered wide range from savoring the steamed one without anything, toeating it with side dishes.
Here in America, we could reach out a variety of breeds in sticky rice such as“Koshihikari”, “Akitakomachi” and “Hitomebore” in Sacrament, California State which
could count more than seven thousand breeds, and its number still increased.
If we individually look at those breeds, we have to admit that there are variety of tastes,
so we sometimes face with the mismatch feeling with side menus. We never realize thebest-matched feeling until we carefully selected the side menus, which attention leads

us to the ultimate flavor of the original rice. There are 330 of the short-grained rice.
Our dining tables are extremely enriched by classifying the rice into several genres such
as Japanese, Western and Ethnic categories to your needs.
Today, Meister Kaneko modestly but carefully chose the best Japanese sticky rice fromthe menu of crop inside America. That is “Sai-no-Kagayaki”, which was grown in
Saitama prefecture (north of Tokyo) and has the tolerance to the diseases and harmful
insects that leads us to less use of agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizer. The“Sai-no-Kagayaki” introduced to all of you today is rare breed of rice, that is, not incirculation even in Japan, had has been used 50% less use of agricultural chemicals andchemical fertilizer
We, now, have been sending this rice to 10 countries as a personal gift. Among others,
we have many orders mostly from the U.S.. To maintain the freshness, we are ready tosend you this rice within three to four days by air.
When you leave here, please take the “Sai-no-Kagayaki” with you, which have grown inthe best environment of less artificial things, and savor the safe and superb rice to thefull.
Thank you for your attention.