By-Product of Beer Makes Tomatoes Sweet

Japan's Asahi Ecology Co., jointly established by Asahi Breweries Ltd. and Shin Nippon Air Technologies Co., has launched the sale of hydroponic sweet tomatoes grown in a culture medium called Malt Ceramic. Malt Ceramic is an innovative material made from compressed, molded, and carbonized malt bran, or malt feed.

While ordinary tomatoes have a sugar content of four to five on the Brix scale of sugar content in fruit, these so-called sweet tomatoes have a Brix reading of eight or more. Sweet tomatoes are regarded as premium fruit, and their retail price is often three to four times higher thanfor ordinary tomatoes.

Malt Ceramic was co-developed by the two companies for mass production, and is made by drying, compressing, molding, and baking malt feed, a by-product generated in the beer brewing process. This ceramic product has several characteristics: it contains homogeneous, high purity carbon that is as hard as Japan's traditional top-grade charcoal (Binchotan). It is safe as it does not contain any heavy metals, but rather it does contain a lot of barley-derived minerals. Also, it prevents the water pH from becoming strongly alkaline.

Co-established by the two companies in 2002, Asahi Ecology aims to commecialize Malt Ceramic by developing a variety of uses that take advantage of its characteristic features. The first product made from Malt Ceramic was a soil substitute for growing Western and Oriental orchids called Orchid Base, which has been on sale since 2001 (patent pending).

Experimentation has shown that Malt Ceramic is an excellent water culture medium for uses such as growing sweeter hydroponic tomatoes. Kashiyama Farm produces tomatoes using Malt Ceramic, and Asahi Ecology sells them under the brand name of Sangoju, which means "coral tree" in Japanese. Through sales of these sweet tomatoes, Asahi Ecology aims to expand use of Malt Ceramic as a commercial water culture medium.



Posted: 2003/05/31 01:16:23 PM
Japanese version