Pictures are taken, sketches are made and a mould is prepared. The process typically starts with the actual food which are brought to the factory from the restaurant or client to serve as the model. Making plastic food is an art in itself, and the manufacturers fiercely guard their trade secrets. Iwasaki Be-I, is still the biggest plastic food manufacturer in Japan, and controls 80% of the plastic food market. After achieving initial success in the big city, he moved back to his home town in Gifu prefecture and established what would eventually become a very real artificial food empire. One of the first pioneers of the replica food industry was the businessman Ryuzo Iwasaki, who began selling his creations in Osaka in 1932. A single restaurant can spend as many as a million yen (USD 8,500) on plastic replicas.Ībout a dozen fake food factories operate in Japan making plastic food replicas for restaurants and collectors alike. The food replicas show you exactly what you’ll get in terms of shape, size and color, and that means they have to be hand crafted from real food samples. It does away with the guesswork and the need to use your imagination when looking at a menu. Fake food on display meant more business, and that still holds true today. It wasn’t until a few years later, when a Tokyo restaurant decided to use it to attract customers, that the idea started taking off. In the beginning they were used merely for decorations at home, just like artificial house plants of the time. The food models, called sampuru, started appearing in Japan nearly a hundred year ago, in 1917. Rather than trying to figure out the correct Japanese translation, customers can simply point at the display window. The practice is less of a novelty and more of a necessity especially for tourists since restaurants in Japan print menus only in Japanese. These food replicas are surprisingly realistic, and restaurants display them so potential customers can see at a glance what is on the chef’s menu before stepping inside an eatery. But they are not meant for eating, no matter how good they look, because they are made of plastic.
#Japanese food blue spheres food in liquid windows#
Restaurants in Japan often display mouth watering food in their windows – sushi, noodles, burgers, soup, and ice cream.
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