Animal products are very important ingredients for our good diet, and its make us happy. In Japan, the supply per person of meat, egg, milk and milk products is about 139 kg/yr in 2015, which is a 4.3 fold increase in this half century but almost constant in the last decade. On the other hand, consumer interest in the quality is growing in these days, and the evaluation responding to the diversification of taste for the products have become complicated. In order to meet these consumer request, we develop the new evaluation technologies to characterize the qualities of animal products, and to elucidate regulatory mechanisms of muscle development related to meat quality. In addition, the number of people addressing health-conscious diet is on the increase. The consumption of drinking milk has been decreased, while that of daily products is increasing each year. To keep the milk production and human health, we study the functionality of lactic acid bacteria and fermented milk components for produce novel dairy products, and developed technology provide dairy farmer; primary producers' diversification into processing and distribution (sixth sector industrialization). To achieve these objectives, our division consists of four units; Meat Quality Research Unit, Muscle Biology Research Unit, Functional Biomolecules Research Unit and Milk Products Research Unit.
