Kochi Prefecture Food Business Supporters

Kochi Prefecture Food Business Supporters support your food export business. Their services include follow-up services of business meetings and food tasting meetings held outside Japan by the Kochi Prefectural Government and collecting business information about local import companies and buyers. They are situated in U.S.A (NY,LA), Paris (Europe), and Shanghai (China) to expand sales of products produced in Kochi to overseas. If you need their services or if you want our advice about exporting food products, please feel free to contact us.

〈Fair Assistance and Supporters〉〈Services〉

(i) Business consultations

(ii) Market research

(iii) Business meeting assistance (making an appointment and on-site assistance)

*Except for documentary translation.

• 〈Application Procedure〉

  Please submit an application form to us in accordance with our regulations.
  See the following files attached herewith for the details.　

  ●Application(Japanese Only) [word file]
  ●Regulations on travel expenses(Japanese Only) [PDF file]
  ●Outline of supports available(Japanese Only) [PDF file]
  ●Administrative flowch(Japanese Only) [PDF file]

• 〈Fees〉

  The services are provided free of charge in principle,except for the following expenses which are to be borne by the applicant.

  - Expenses to be borne by the applicant:
  （1）Travel expenses (including air and land transportation fees)
  （2）Lodging
  （3）Expenses on foods and drinks related to business meeting assistance services

〈Supporters〉

• 

  Chiemi Okumoto (Europe)

  Living in Paris, Ms. Okumoto has a wide variety of experiences including the sale of yuzu produced in Kochi, as a shop manager of a Japanese food importing and distributing business. She obtained a master’s degree from Université de Tours, and is a specialist in introducing Japanese food ingredients to the European food culture.

• 

  Noriyuki Shimizu (east coast of the U.S.A)

  Living in New York, Mr. Shimizu once worked for a local Japanese publishing company for 15 years as an ad planner and oversaw sales. He then went on to start his own business, and is now mainly involved in third-party marketing and advertisement for major food companies and breweries.

• 

  Takaaki Uehara（west coast of the U.S.A）

  Residence in Los Angeles, CA. He had worked in US food industry at one of major Japanese trading companies for 15 years with exporting/importing food between US and Asia, supported many Japanese food companies to get into US market. He has become independent since 2019 and been working for export business from US to Japan.