Support for Children’s Cafeterias
- Local Communities
Contributing to the Local Community by Providing Food to Kodomo Shokudo (Children’s Cafeterias)
Kodomo Shokudo, or Children's Cafeterias, run by NPOs and regional volunteer groups, are free or low-cost places to eat where children can go on their own. Currently, there are over 10,000 such Kodomo Shokudo locations across Japan providing meals to children, eliminating the problem of having to eat alone, and functioning as a place for nutrition education, while also serving as a place for multi-generational community interaction with adults. By furnishing food through various means, Kubota endorses the purposes of Kodomo Shokudo, which serves as a hub for community exchange, and contributes to individual local communities.
KUBOTA AGRI FRONT is an agricultural learning facility established as a place where everyone, from children to adults, can focus on "food and agriculture" issues, learning and thinking together about what they can do for the future. As part of its activities to support communities, leaf lettuce grown in the plant factory on the premises is shared to assist four Kodomo Shokudo locations in the city of Kitahiroshima, Hokkaido. As well as having provided lettuce 13 times in 2024, the facility also conducts on-site nutrition classes.
Nakakyushu Kubota has furnished surplus brown rice bread sold by a Group company to a Kodomo Shokudo in the neighboring area. Delivering food seven times from November to December 2024 contributed both to the local community and to reducing food waste.
Furthermore, Hokuriku Kinki Kubota annually donates vegetables harvested from the vegetable garden the company began in June 2021 to Kodomo Shokudo. This vegetable garden began with the aim of contributing to society by regenerating an abandoned field, learning horticultural techniques for vegetable-related products, providing employees with nutritional education, providing local children with harvesting experience, and sharing harvested vegetables to the region. Continuing these activities through 2024, vegetables they grew were donated five times to two Kodomo Shokudo locations in Fukui Prefecture, one in the city of Fukui and the other in the city of Awara.
Kubota will continue to make useful contributions to the region, including supporting Kodomo Shokudo, and to interact with the local community.