All PFN ARTICLES

Japan’s obsession with perfect Wagyu is moving from pasture to petri dish. Organoid Farm, the Tokyo biotech now scaling Wagyu muscle cells to 200-litre bioreactors, has started supplying cultivated Wagyu beef cells to labs and foodtech partners across Japan. Their claim? A protein profile that sizzles, smells, and even flexes like the real thing.

Japan’s sushi scene may be heading for a quiet revolution. As wild tuna stocks dwindle and prices soar, Mitsui DM Sugar is preparing to launch a plant-based tuna sashimi brand next year that undercuts the market cost of maguro. This isn’t just a vegan niche product — it’s a calculated strike at the heart of Japan’s seafood economy, where raw tuna is both cultural currency and a disappearing resource.

Japan has perfected the art of turning fruit into treasure. The Miyazaki-grown Taiyō no Tamago mango known as "Egg of the Sun", is ruby red, sugar-loaded, and flawless, is a status symbol that routinely sells for thousands at auction during the early summer. These aren’t just mangoes; they’re objects of desire, cultivated with almost surgical precision under glass, bathed in sunlight reflected by mirrors, and handled like Fabergé eggs. The price? A cool $4,000 a pair at seaso

Demand for matcha, that vibrant, powdered punch of green tea so loved by wellness influencers, oat milk baristas, and TikTok’s Gen Z elite, is skyrocketing so fast that the world's traditional tea farms are quite literally running dry. The Japanese farms producing tencha, the shaded green tea leaves ground into matcha, simply can’t keep up. And it’s not just a social media surge. It’s a full-blown supply chain crisis.

Vegetarian curry isn’t the first thing you expect from a company famous for two-stroke motorbikes and the indestructible Jimny, yet that’s exactly where Suzuki has pointed its latest innovation. What began as a canteen experiment, feeding homesick Indian engineers a taste “just like Mum makes”, has accelerated into a national retail launch - four-pack of shelf stable vegetarian curries selling online for 918 yen (about US $5.70) a pop.

Welcome to Erewhon, Los Angeles’ cathedral of curated wellness, where celery juice is religion and the home of a single $20 strawberry. Yes, one strawberry. Not dipped in gold, not encrusted with edible diamonds, just a very red, very round, very Japanese strawberry, padded in plastic and treated like it’s on loan from the Louvre.

In a development, part science fiction, part Sunday dinner, Japanese scientists have just unveiled the world’s largest lab-grown chicken nugget with veins. Yes, you read that right. The nugget, grown in a lab using a simulated circulatory system of hollow fibres, marks a huge leap forward in the cultivated meat race. But before you fire up the air fryer, no it’s not edible yet.

Portugal-based Kiwi startup Nutrition from Water™ (NXW)  - founded by New Zealander Alex Worker - has just signed a deal with Nissei Kyoeki, one of Japan’s long-standing protein import royalty. Together, they’re launching NXW's Marine Whey, a next-gen protein brewed not from cows, but from the sea. Yep, it's protein. From water.

While Australians are heading to Japan for the cherry blossoms and powdery slopes, their avocados are making their own mark right on the pla

On the eve of submissions closing for New Zealand’s Gene Technology Bill, a powerful consumer voice from Japan has weighed in and they’re no

The Japanese government has made a bold appeal to its citizens to eat more vegetables. But as food prices soar, this well-intentioned advice

In a country known for its love of sushi, wagyu beef, and a culinary culture steeped in seafood, FamilyMart’s bold foray into plant-based fo