TOKYO - Japanese agricultural technology startup Oishii Farm is seeking to transform global food production through artificial intelligence, robotics and fully controlled indoor farming, having succeeded in mass-producing Japanese strawberries in the United States and now joining forces with leading Japanese manufacturers to develop plant factories for export worldwide.
Founded in the United States by Japanese entrepreneur Hiroki Koga, Oishii Farm has developed technology that recreates Japan's growing conditions inside large industrial facilities, controlling temperature, humidity and even the wavelengths of artificial light. Its most significant breakthrough has been using AI to monitor the behavior of individual bees, enabling natural pollination inside a plant factory, something previously considered extremely difficult.
The company has built one of the world's most advanced indoor strawberry production facilities about an hour's drive from Manhattan, New York. Completed in 2025, the enormous factory occupies a former plastics manufacturing complex that was once among the largest in the United States.
Inside, rows of strawberries are cultivated on multiple levels in an environment designed to reproduce Japanese growing conditions throughout the year.
Unlike conventional Japanese strawberry farming, where the main harvest season runs from December through March or April, Oishii Farm can maintain production 365 days a year, regardless of outdoor weather conditions.
The greatest challenge was pollination. While leafy vegetables can be cultivated relatively easily in indoor factories, producing fruits that require insect pollination has traditionally been far more complicated.
Koga and his engineers developed a system combining carefully controlled environmental conditions with proprietary AI technology to monitor the movements and behavior of individual bees. By creating conditions that make the insects behave as though they are in their natural habitat, the company succeeded in achieving reliable pollination and large-scale strawberry production.
The technology has helped Oishii Farm overcome one of the biggest obstacles to commercial indoor fruit farming.
Automation extends to harvesting. The company uses robotic arms manufactured by Japanese industrial robot maker Yaskawa Electric, fitted with imaging sensors and proprietary AI software that determines when individual strawberries are ripe enough to pick.
The robots then harvest the fruit automatically, reducing dependence on manual labor while maintaining consistent quality.
Oishii Farm's engineers continuously train the AI systems using information collected from growing strawberries, gradually improving the accuracy of both cultivation management and harvesting.
Despite the sophisticated appearance of its facilities, many of the factory's essential components have been designed and manufactured internally.
Koga said the company's extensive team of engineers develops individual parts and integrates them into customized production systems, giving Oishii Farm greater control over its technology.
The results have enabled the company to distribute Japanese-style strawberries to approximately 500 retail outlets across the United States.
The quality of the strawberries has also attracted attention from Japan's high-end restaurant industry.
At Ginza Shinohara, a two-Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant in Tokyo, chef Takanori Shinohara sampled strawberries brought by Koga and praised their exceptional flavor.
Inspired by the fruit's sweetness and aroma, Shinohara created an original dish combining strawberry jam, foie gras, caviar and generously cut fresh strawberries, finished with a whiskey jelly and enclosed in a traditional Japanese monaka wafer.
The creation demonstrated how the strawberries' strong flavor and fragrance could complement luxury ingredients such as foie gras and caviar.
Koga, who previously worked at a consulting company, founded Oishii Farm in the United States in 2017 after becoming increasingly concerned about the future of global food production.
He believes conventional agriculture faces mounting challenges from climate change, shrinking supplies of agricultural land and water, and shortages of workers.
"If things continue as they are, agriculture will inevitably become unsustainable," Koga said, explaining his belief that a substantial proportion of food production will eventually shift to controlled indoor facilities.
He estimates that the transition could create an industry worth 100 trillion yen and sees an opportunity for Japan to become a leading supplier of the technology needed to support it.
Rather than begin with relatively simple crops, Koga deliberately chose strawberries, considered among the most difficult fruits to cultivate in plant factories.
His reasoning was that mastering one of the industry's greatest technical challenges would give the company a competitive advantage as the market expanded.
He also chose to establish the business in the United States, one of the world's most demanding and competitive consumer markets.
After years of experimentation, the company succeeded in commercializing its technology and has attracted approximately 52.5 billion yen in funding from investors in Japan and the United States.
Koga is now preparing for the next phase of expansion, which involves building more facilities outside the New York area while developing standardized plant factory modules that can be manufactured and exported internationally.
Japan is central to that strategy.
The entrepreneur believes Japan possesses important advantages in precision manufacturing, industrial robotics and environmental control technology, creating opportunities for Japanese businesses to become major suppliers to the emerging indoor agriculture industry.
In February 2025, Koga began laying the groundwork for Oishii Farm's expansion into Japan.
At a meeting in Tokyo, he gathered key members of the company's management team to evaluate a wide selection of premium Japanese strawberry varieties purchased from local retailers.
Some of the strawberries cost as much as 3,500 yen per package, while others were priced at around 2,500 yen.
The purpose was to compare their flavor, sweetness, fragrance and overall quality with Oishii Farm's existing products and identify how the company could differentiate its strawberries when entering the Japanese market.
Among the varieties sampled, the team reached a consensus that Amaou strawberries from Saitama Prefecture offered an especially impressive balance of sweetness and aroma.
The tasting provided a benchmark for future product development and helped the company consider where to position its brand in Japan's highly competitive premium strawberry market.
Koga also expressed confidence in the quality of Oishii Farm's existing strawberries, suggesting the company could compete with established Japanese brands.
In March 2025, the company moved ahead with plans to establish a major research and development center in Hamura, western Tokyo.
The site, a large former logistics warehouse, was selected as a strategic base for developing the next generation of plant factories and accelerating technological cooperation with Japanese manufacturers.
Oishii Farm intends to bring together leading Japanese companies, including Yaskawa Electric, under an "All-Japan" initiative that combines their expertise in industrial automation, robotics and precision engineering.
The objective goes beyond producing strawberries or other high-value fruits. Koga wants to develop complete plant factory systems that can be manufactured in Japan and exported to countries facing shortages of agricultural land, water and labor.
By standardizing production modules, the company hopes to accelerate construction of new facilities internationally and reduce the costs of establishing fully controlled farming operations.
Koga believes Japan is particularly well positioned to compete in this emerging sector, potentially gaining an advantage over both the United States and China through its established industrial technology.
He sees the opportunity as comparable to the development of a major new manufacturing industry, with plant factories potentially becoming an important Japanese export alongside automobiles and industrial machinery.
The broader movement toward profitable, internationally competitive Japanese agriculture is also gaining momentum in conventional farming.
Japan Agricultural Corporation, led by a young entrepreneur with experience at consulting firm McKinsey & Company, is pursuing a different strategy centered on expanding exports of Japanese apples.
The company is introducing new cultivation methods and branding strategies to sell Japanese apples in markets across Asia, seeking to demonstrate that agriculture can generate attractive returns for producers.
Its approach includes developing and promoting distinctive apple varieties, including yellow apples, as part of efforts to differentiate Japanese produce in overseas markets.
By increasing profitability, the company also hopes to address the declining number of agricultural producers in Japan, where an aging workforce and a shortage of successors have become major concerns.
Together, the two businesses illustrate different approaches to rebuilding the competitiveness of Japanese agriculture: Oishii Farm through advanced indoor production and technology exports, and Japan Agricultural Corporation through improved cultivation practices, branding and overseas sales.
For Koga, the ultimate ambition is to move beyond selling premium strawberries and establish Japan as a global leader in the technologies that could reshape how food is grown.
With the Tokyo research facility forming the foundation of an international expansion strategy, Oishii Farm is positioning itself to compete for a significant share of what Koga believes could become a 100 trillion yen global industry.
Source: テレ東BIZ
