Hiroshi Konno
"A secret and sophisticated Japanese food tradition, Koji"

Position

• President of Akita Konno Co., Ltd”

Profile

Hiroshi Konno received his BS degree in Agriculture Chemistry from Tokyo University of Agriculture in 1980. He worked at National Research Institute of Brewing as trainee from 1981 to 1983. He worked as research assistant of Laboratory of Microbiology, Delft University of Technology from 1983 to1985, Netherlands. In 1985, He succeed to the family business “Akita Konno Co., Ltd” since then.
Akita Konno Co., Ltd has been manufacturing and dealing the starter for brewing microbe, such as yeast, Koji fungus since 1910. Only a few such a dealers exist in all Japan. He has been engaged in the research and management. He transferred temporarily from Institute of Biotechnology Applied to Eumycetes as research manager from 1993 to 2008.
He received the Ph.D. degree in Agriculture Chemistry from Tokyo University of Agriculture in 2007. He received the Encouragement Prize of Secretary of Japan Patent Office in 2010, and The Encouragement Prize of Filamentous Fungal Genetic Research Society of Japan in 2014. He has been a instructor of the Life Science of Graduated School and Faculty of Engineering Science of Akita University since 2016. His enlighten science column has been published serially in The Yomiuri local edition since 2010. He is active in the brewing society both officially and privately now.