ABI Inc.
Norio Owada, President

Cryopreservation of vegetables, fish and meat for years with their freshness or taste intact as though they have just been harvested - such freezing technology that consumers and producers fantasized was developed by ABI Inc., a manufacturer of freezing equipment. Mr. Owada, the company’s president explains the mechanism as follows.

"In conventional quick-freezing, water within the cell freezes first and compresses/destroys the cell tissues, causing the deterioration of freshness and flavor. However, in the freezing system that we’ve developed, a combination of weak energy and magnetic field vibrates the water molecules within the food. This enables quick-freezing while a constant overall temperature is maintained, which prevents damage to the cell tissues, and returns to their original fresh state once thawed"

He said he got an idea for this development when he heard professional chefs say "This is very fresh because the cell tissues are still there", or "This won’t taste good because the cells are damaged" when they start cutting the ingredients. The company named this revolutionary freezing technology "CAS (Cells Alive System)", signifying that the cells are alive. Today, this CAS technology is about to bring a significant change not only in cryopreservation of food but also in food distribution, and furthermore, in various fields including medical care.

Returning to almost its original "raw" state

"I don’t mean to say that seeing is believing, but would you like to check whether food actually frozen by quick-freezing equipment with CAS feature lost their textures or their freshness?" said Mr. Owada, and placed rock oysters, grated radish and spinach in front of us, all of them which were frozen by quick-freezing equipment with CAS feature and have just been thawed. Their appearances are all indistinguishable from their raw state.

"How will they taste…?" and I put a rock oyster in my mouth. It has been harvested 4 months ago in the town of Ama-cho, Oki Islands in Shimane Prefecture. It was frozen with CAS method at the harvest location, and has been preserved at ABI’s lab. A strong flavor of the ocean spread in my mouth, and the slimy and firm texture unique to oysters was by no means inferior to raw oysters. The grated radish maintained the pungent taste, and its juiciness and texture were almost like it had just been grated. Then, there were two types of boiled spinach that have been frozen. One of them was thawed frozen spinach that is often found in supermarkets; it lacked flavor, and had a soggy texture when I put it in my mouth. On the other hand, the spinach frozen by quick-freezing equipment with CAS feature and just thawed, looked obviously different at the moment it was picked up with chopsticks. It was crunchy and glossy, and tasted just like fresh spinach that has just been boiled.

It will return ingredients to almost the original state before thawing - this is the feature of CSA technology. When packaged meat or fish that were frozen with conventional method are thawed, red liquid called drip seeps out, which contains amino acid that provide savoriness and nutritional components, and this results in the loss of flavor and nutrition. However, when ingredients frozen by quick-freezing equipment with CAS feature are thawed, hardly any drip seeps out, and not only the color or the aroma, but also the taste can be reproduced.

"If you take pork cutlet as an example, CAS can keep the ingredient in its best condition at that period of time, regardless of whether it was raw meat, coated before deep frying, or after deep frying." Mr. Owada emphasized.

Although CAS is just a freezing technology, its application could bring a revolution in the stable supply and circulation of ingredients. The July 2008 issue of U.S. economic magazine "Forbes" introduced ABI’s CAS technology as a new technology since the invention of rapid-freeze method in the 1920's, and predicted that it will bring a significant change to the world of food freezing in the future.

Mr. Owada created quite a stir in the frozen food industry, but his starting point in manufacturing was at the company making sweets producing machines that his father was running. The moment he graduated from school, his father proclaimed, "Help our company from tomorrow", before he could say anything.

"I was the fourth of seven brothers, so besides my father, there were a bunch of elder brothers at the company. It was a family-owned company, so to speak. At that time, I could never disobey my father, but I felt that if I kept working there, I would be somewhat spoiled. So I asked a subcontractor’s factory through my father to let me work there as a live-in help."

Eventually he returns to his father’s company, and as he got to understand the content of work, he began to recognize various contradictions. Being a machine making company, it was not thinking about the users or the general consumers. He proposed that paying attention to that fact will expand the business opportunity, but his opinion was not easily accepted. Before long, the gap between him and the brothers on how to run the company grew wider.

In the end, he started his own company on a condition that he won’t take any business away from his elder brothers. It was 1988. As he pursued a technology to freeze dairy cream by trial and error, his efforts bore fruit as CAS technology.

Economic downturn produces business opportunities

Japan’s self-sufficiency ratio for food has dropped below 40%, and it is now in a "crisis" situation. As the average annual income of people engaged in the primary industry such as agriculture, fishery and livestock industry remains below two million yen, production capacity will continue to decline more and more. Mr. Owada says that it will become possible to correct this unbalanced situation if the usage of CAS technology becomes widespread.

"In fishery and agriculture, a system to freeze and process fresh ingredients by CAS technology and to deliver them directly to consumers and supermarkets is emerging. Those oysters from Ama-cho are part of it. If a secondary processing factory is built at the harvest location, it will lead to the employment of young people, and will eventually result in revitalization of the region and support for senior citizen as well. This is not an empty wish, and even people engaged in the primary industry can earn an annual income of four or five million yen."

Until now, when there was a bumper crop, farm products were disposed to prevent the fall in value, and shortages occurred when there was an unseasonable weather. However, it will become possible to provide a steady supply by using quick-freezing equipment with CAS feature to freeze products at the production location, and by adjusting the shipment.

In addition, the CAS feature that does not destroy cells during freezing preservation at low temperature has attracted the attention of the medical care field, such as organ transplant, regenerative medicine and blood transfusion, and joint researches are being carried out with university research institutions, etc.

Mr. Owada asserted that the recent economic downturn caused by the fall in stock prices/strong yen produces business opportunities. "No matter how bad the economic downturn gets, things that are necessary will absolutely sell. This is because retrofitting CAS features to existing quick-freezers will result in a system that produces profits", he said.

Although Mr. Owada will turn 65 years old this year, he really has the energy of a person in his forties. Perhaps his youth that has been frozen is thawing naturally, and it is being reproduced now.

Frozen by quick-freezing equipment with CAS feature

After thawing

ABI Inc.:
Manufacturing/sales of freezers with CAS feature

7-3-9, Namiki, Abiko-city,
Chiba 270-1165
TEL:+81-4-7184-2336　FAX:+81-4-7184-1757
Establishment: February 1989
Capital: Twenty million yen
Annual Sales: 1 billion yen
Employee: 40 people