Fish eggs are used in many different dishes. Take a look inside the hole on the tummy of each fish to see what their eggs look like. Now, can you guess which fish gives birth to the Mentaiko?

The answer is the walleye pollock, second from the left.

1. The Mentaiko is made of walleye pollock eggs.The walleye pollock are fished out of the cold northern oceans.
2. The eggs are carefully selected out of the batches of various stages of the eggs to be marinated.
3. Marinating the eggs in a salt and secret spice mix, the "Salted Cod Roe" become plump and juicy.
4. Health and Safety inspections and taste tests are conducted before using the eggs.

To maintain total quality control, only specially selected ingredients are used to make Fukuya's "Aji-no Mentaiko".

The heart of the Mentaiko (Cod Roe) making process. We maintain a clean room with hygiene management.

After selecting the best cod roe and separating them by hand, we marinate it in our special sauce. After letting it sit in the marinate for two days, the balance between the flavor of the eggs and marinate is just perfect for our delicious Mentaiko.

Once the Mentaiko has been fermented, we carefully begin the packaging and weighing process. After cleaning the package of excess mentaiko and spices, we heat the plastic and is sealed shut. Once the package has been sealed, each package is screened for metals, weighed, and sent to the boxing room.

Here we print the production date on the package and box it up. Each box is then carefully placed in a larger cardbord box, sent out by pallet and is finally ready to be shipped. This process is fully automated and done by machinery.

The inspection personnel taste, smell, and observe all of the ingredients daily, to make sure everything is perfect. Only employees who pass the stringent testing are assigned to this position. They are further trained on a daily basis to be able to "Taste", "Smell", and "See" the quality of Mentaiko.

TTry this hands on experience and test your skills.

We continue to produce new products centered around "Hakata" and "Mentaiko" as key words. We think about what it means to be Hakata and bring those ideas to life through a variety of products.

The 100 Year Anniversary Project to celebrate our founder, Kawahara Toshio, produced three iconic items with consideration to what Kawahara Toshio may have created if he had been alive today

The marinated Mentaiko are packaged and weighed by hand. Because Mentaiko with excess marinate are soft and larger, we are very careful with this process. Because each individual Mentaiko weighs differently, we employ the best technology in making sure the final products all weigh the same.

Try your hand at weighing the mentaiko and race against the pros.

Health and saftey management is an extremely important task. We comply with strict standards to maintain the quality of our product.

Because Meintako is a natural resource, we are involved in protecting the environment for the following generation.

The factory director is involved in each stage of the process and controls the production.

The "Aji-no Mentaiko Reproduction" product line was developed using rare, domestic resources that our founder, Kawahara Toshio, would have used 50 years ago. The creator of this idea, Mr. Hashida, was selected to be part of the development team after his completion of the Marinating Raw Egg Technics Course and has since been a core member of the team. It took nearly two years to bring this select product line to reality.

In 1948, Kawahara Toshio founded "Fukuya", a foods manufacturer. Based on his dining experience of cod roe from the Korean Penninsula, he developed the "Aji-no Mentaiko" product line. He continued to develop the product line from the input of locals and took 10 years to complete. Rather than filing for a patent, he shared the manufacturing techniques publicly. That led to many manufacturers mimicking his techniques and the Spicy Mentaiko became the face of Hakata. This exhibit is a replica of a shop from 1953. The glass jar at the front of the shop is filled with Mentaiko. Please take a look around.