Japanese Factory Tours Gets Sun Sprout Thinking Big

A trip to Japan to attend the International Sprout Growers Association (ISGA) annual convention in Tokyo in April gave Sun Sprout a first hand look at two of Japan’s largest mung growing operations - and strengthened Sin Sprout’s position as a leader in their industry.

During the convention Sun Sprout Managing Director, Stephen Dench, joined 120 sprout growers from as far afield as South America, Canada and Holland to learn about the latest sprout nutritional research, product developments and trends. Stephen was also elected for a second term as the Vice President of the US-based ISGA.
 
The ISGA is a professional association of sprout growers and companies that supply products and services to the sprout industry worldwide, and has members throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia. Along with being the Vice President of the ISGA, Stephen Dench is also the chairman of the ISGA Australasian sub-committee.

Stephen says the trip to Japan was part of Sun Sprout’s ongoing commitment to stay at the forefront of international best practice and trends. As well as attending the three-day convention Stephen also visited two of Japan’s largest mung growing operations, and spent a day checking out the latest sprout growing machinery.

Stephen says, “I got some great ideas for how we can improve our production of sprouts from the machinery plant and the mung factories were great to see. The two factories combined produce over 220 tones of mung beans PER DAY. Japan’s largest mung grower, Fuji Natural Foods, was particularly inspirational. They have 16 bag machines, grow their mung in enormous 6-ton bins, and are highly automated with robotically guided vehicles, packing robots and automatic palletizes.”
 
“Even though we are a much smaller operation, we can learn a lot from these companies and being able to visit them and see how they operate was extremely valuable.”