With the Japanese cheese market facing an imminent threat from imports due to multilateral free trade pacts, a mom-and-pop factory in Hokkaido is striving to offer quality products that can compete with Europe's best.Ryota Kikuchi, who opened his cheese factory Chikap with his wife in late 2013, is looking to bump sales with a new 12-square-meter cheese-maturing chamber, the August addition increasing production capacity by 20 percent."We want to compete with European products, which are high in quality and low in price," Kikuchi, 37, said, even as the task promises to become more challengi…READ FULL ARTICLE
