WHEAT FOR
"HANAMARU
UDON"

Hanamaru Udon’s pursuit of texture and sourcing of the right ingredients to achieve it

Texture-wise, Sanuki-style udon is loved for its signature firmness, but “firmness” is a slippery concept. Rather than udon that is simply firm from its surface to the core, our quest is for udon whose surface is soft and smooth and whose core is springy and rather chewy. That is the kind of firmness Hanamaru Udon is pursuing, and it corresponds to the authentic taste of Sanuki-style udon loved in Takamatsu, the home of the style. The texture makes udon so irresistibly delicious for customers of every generation, from children to seniors.

About 90% of the wheat consumed in Japan are imported. For Hanamaru Udon, ASW wheat from Western Australia is the principal ingredient and it is blended with Japanese wheat in noodle production. Wheat grown overseas is mainly used for bread, and so its gluten and starch tend to be firm, but ASW is also known for its balanced viscoelasticity and has long been imported because it can achieve the optimum firmness that is the hallmark of Sanuki-style udon.

When it comes to ingredients, people tend to think that anything “made in Japan” is superior. But for Sanuki-style udon, Japanese wheat alone would be unsuitable because its gluten is soft and its starch too sticky, and so ASW, with its firmer characteristics, has long been the best choice. In recent years, wheat with ASW’s characteristics has been developed in Japan and Japanese wheat suitable for udon has become popular. But yields in Japan’s wheat-growing regions are modest, and moreover the significant regional variation in wheat characteristics is an issue. For a restaurant chain such as Hanamura Udon focused on stable procurement of wheat of uniform quality, imported wheat is still the optimum solution.

Blending of ingredients and sensory analysis to safeguard the taste of udon

Hanamaru Udon noodles are made from a wheat flour blend consisting of ASW, which has just the right viscoelasticity, as the main ingredient and wheat grown in Kyushu, which is sticky and has a robust flavor. The properties of both ASW and wheat grown in Kyushu vary depending on the year of production. ASW has tended to be a little too firm in recent years. So every year we try various blends of wheat flour, all of which are cooked to make udon noodles and go through the sensory analysis (evaluation using the five human senses by actually eating the noodles) by members of the Udon Production Department. We bounce opinions off each other and then decide which blend to use. We measure physical property data as well, but the judgement ultimately rests upon the five senses of people in the know about the taste of our traditional udon.

Cooperation with flour millers essential for procurement of state-traded wheat

Imported wheat is traded by the Japanese government, which purchases wheat from overseas via trading companies and sells it to flour millers. This means that we are not permitted to directly purchase wheat from Australia. Therefore, we need to encourage the government, through flour millers, to purchase the wheat best suited to Hanamaru Udon. For this reason, we join hands with flour millers, share the taste of Hanamaru Udon, and hold a meeting with a frequency ranging from once a week to once a month as necessary. In addition to exchanging information on procurement, we also discuss with the flour millers the state of the crop, appropriate selection and blending, and the method of flour milling, because the properties of wheat available are subject to the government’s procurement policy and the year of production.

Why we visit producers in Australia

We are unable to procure wheat directly from producers, but we nonetheless visit wheat farmers in Australia and proactively interact with them. In fact, Japan and South Korea are virtually the only countries in the world that purchase ASW, a variety of wheat suitable for udon. Given ASW’s modest yield per unit area, local producers can do business more efficiently when they grow other varieties instead of ASW. With no actions taken, the farmers might neglect ASW production, and the neglect would eventually compromise the stability of supply and the quality of our products.

That is why it is so important for us, end users, to visit producers and directly communicate our enthusiasm to them about how ASW is used in Japan, how stable the demand for ASW is, and what kind of wheat is desired, rather than relying solely on trading companies and flour millers. One of our most memorable initiatives in this regard was an event we held several years ago where farmers tried our udon.

As a promotional caravan, we visited about half a dozen regions where ASW is produced with representatives of a trading company. In each region, we invited 20 to 30 farmers and served them udon dishes. We cooked two types of udon for the purpose of comparison: udon noodle using ASW flour and udon noodle using Australian Prime Hard (APH) wheat flour, a variety of wheat also produced in Australia but primarily for Chinese noodles. This event allowed the participants to have fun and recognize with their five senses the difference between the two varieties of wheat and our need for ASW, and also helped us to cultivate closer relationships with the farmers.

Enhanced relationships with farmers lead to stable supply and value creation in the future

As I mentioned, imported wheat is subject to the state trading. However, some wheat brands are beginning to be traded under an import scheme called the Simultaneous Buy and Sell (SBS) system, where trading companies and flour millers directly trade without the intervention of the Japanese government. This new scheme may enable us to purchase wheat flour freely within the next few years, meaning we might be able to change suppliers of each variety in response to its yield status and price hikes and to trade with farmers that produce new varieties. Chances are that this liberalization would pave the way for more stable procurement and more stable quality as well as our exploration for new possibilities of udon.

And taking advantage of such liberalization will probably necessitate a sure grasp of the situation of wheat production overseas, farmers’ circumstances, and their feelings. Gaining local information is also helpful for meaningful exchanges of information with flour millers. Information is and will continue to be an essential part of Hanamaru-quality udon.

Our adherence to fresh noodle distribution realized by the central kitchen system

Raw wheat received by flour millers is milled in the most optimal way to make our proprietary Hanamaru Flour, which finds its way to our noodle production plants at five locations in Japan (Hokkaido, Chiba, Shizuoka, Takamatsu, and Okinawa) under stringent quality control. Approximately 300,000 portions of noodle are produced each day nationwide, and about 160,000 of them are produced at the Chiba plant.

Although our noodles are very reasonably priced, our uncompromising policy is to deliver fresh noodles to our stores, not frozen noodles or dried noodles that would be advantageous in terms of efficiency. Certainly, we can opt for producing noodles at each store rather than at the central kitchen system. But udon, made only from wheat flour, water and salt, is so delicate that in order to maintain consistent quality, an artisan needs to apply his or her knowledge and techniques for adjusting the quantities of water and salt according to the air temperature and humidity on each day and for fine-tuning the temperature of dough. Noodle production personnel at each store would struggle to do this uniformly and it would likely result in inconsistent quality.

Most importantly, noodle production at a plant ensures thorough safety management. Ever since our inaugural Takamatsu plant came on stream, our motto at production workplaces has been “safety, reliability, quality, and efficiency.” This order of priority highlights our conviction that safety always comes first and is the precondition for achieving reliability, quality, and efficiency.

Automation achieves constant quality over the long term

Besides part-timers, 21 full-time employees work at our plants across Japan now. Only about five or six of them are members from the foundation who created Hanamaru Udon through trial and error in the early days. Amid the labor shortage, from a long-term perspective it is risky to rely on only people to pass on noodle production techniques that requires mastery of skills.

Mindful of this, Hanamaru fully automated the noodle production line at its Chiba plant in 2016. Machines execute the processes that require craftmanship but are essentially simple, with machine control reproducing the craftsmanship. As data are stored for all production processes, such as the water quantity, temperature, and the degree of kneading, craftmanship is digitized, which contributes to constant quality over the long term. The digitization also has significant impacts on the investigation in the event of trouble and the technology improvement for the future.

Advantages of having five plants nationwide

Having several plants nationwide not only enhances distribution efficiency but also minimizes risk as plants can complement one another in the event that operation ceases due to an emergency. Each plant has spare capacity so that plants can complement one another and deliver noodles to franchises and all other stores even in the eventuality.

The production environment, such as the climate, of each of our plants differs and they also procure wheat from different flour millers, leaving a difference in quality between production regions. In order to ensure such difference falls within a tolerable range, members of the Production Division check noodles produced at all our plants by means of sensory analysis once every two weeks. Some might wonder why we use sensory analysis, but they can notice the slightest change in taste not evident in the data because they eat Hanamaru Udon so often.

Reducing food losses in the flow from plants to stores

To perfect logistics from plants to stores, we have refined temperature control. Whereas food is typically refrigerated at 3 degrees Celsius for warehouse storage and truck delivery, we specify storage of Hanamaru Udon at five degrees Celsius. This is because condensation caused by sudden change in temperature alters the moisture content of noodles and undermines their quality. We are also continuing our efforts to eliminate the exposure of udon to room temperature during shipment.

Our management system between plants and stores involves thorough order placement/taking management, which helps to reduce food losses. Plants other than the Chiba plant must ship noodles within two days from production and dispose of any remaining noodle whose shipping deadline has expired. Therefore, the plants forecast the required quantity based on the historical record of order placement from stores and make no excess inventory. Meanwhile, stores place orders every day for noodles for the day after next and only retain surplus inventory consumed in half a day. In this way, we systematically reduce food losses to nearly zero during the process from production to storage at stores.

The made-to-order system does not ensure the stable supply at the Chiba plant, which produces the majority of Hanamaru Udon noodles. Accordingly, its production plan includes a certain surplus. To prevent food losses at the Chiba plant too, we have introduced the deaeration packaging, a novel packaging format, in the production process and successfully extended the freshness date from production to a maximum of 15 days.

Time-managed operation to safeguard quality in the cooking phase

For quality management at stores, in addition to the standard procedure for temperature control of refrigerators, meticulous operation is essential to prevent use of out-of-date noodles through human error. In this regard, each store is required to restock shelves in the refrigerators after the store is closed to confirm that the noodles are placed in the order of delivery. Our stores also make sure to check the use-by date of the noodles they are using every three hours.

Time management from the point in time when noodles are removed from a refrigerator and put in a pot has an important bearing on quality management at stores. Noodles are cooked for just over 10 minutes and time for rinsing them in cold water to maintain the firmness is also strictly set. Boiled udon noodles are placed on trays, boiled again when a customer places an order and then served to the customer. The time during which boiled udon noodles are left on trays is called the holding time, which is carefully managed.

Whether or not the noodles left on trays go to waste depends on the accuracy of store staff’s prediction of the number of customers. Fewer customers during the holding time than predicted mean that we have no choice but dispose of the boiled udon in excess. Nevertheless, we prioritize food safety and quality management over efficiency, based on which we are implementing meticulous time management and working to predict the number of customers more accurately.

Supervisors in charge of stores are responsible for implementation of meticulous operational procedures and quality checks. Managerial personnel such as General managers and Managing Supervisors visit stores in each area, perform sensory analysis, and exchange opinions. We have put in place systems that enable us to investigate the causes if any abnormality is detected by tracing back from the logistics phase to the production processes and ultimately to the flour millers that supplied the wheat flour.

Everyone involved in Hanamaru Udon—whether members of the Production Division, staff engaged in noodle production at plants, our business partners including trading companies, flour millers, transportation companies, and store staff—is striving to enhance quality with the commitment to “offering safe and delicious udon to customers.” This commitment to providing value remains unchanged in the future when we engage in a new round of store development.