Developing specialty products that make Toshima residents proud to call Toshima home

On Toshima, residents have been discussing how to increase the island's appeal since FY 2019. Because recognition of Toshima is low compared to the other Tokyo Islands, participants in the general island meetings explored ways of creating a base off-island where they could provide opportunities for people to get to know Toshima. A study tour on the Japanese mainland, however, reinforced the difficulties of operating a promotional base in the city--some sort of tangible or intangible specialty was needed to promote the island at the base. Therefore, the participants decided to first tackle the development of products that can be used as a selling point for Toshima.

In FY 2020, the participants moved ahead with product development. Their aim is to create products that the people of Toshima can love and be proud of, and that can be used year-round at inns and other visitor accommodations as well as in ordinary households, using ingredients symbolic of Toshima.

The first step before product development could begin was to collect recipes and product ideas from island residents.

The ideas that they collected were highly representative of Toshima, such as foods using camellia oil extracted from the 200,000 camellia plants on Toshima; foods using ashitaba (Angelica keiskei), a plant native to the Izu Islands that is said to have various medicinal properties; snacks that have long been consumed locally; and foods that make use of the island's marine products, for example.

Then, in October, food experts were invited to participate in a tasting event that was held based on these ideas.

At the tasting event, participants discussed the direction of product development and core ingredients to be emphasized from the perspective of which products Toshima residents supported and their feasibility for commercialization. The options were narrowed down to two food items that were easy to prepare at island inns and in homes.