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By Takashi Mochizuki
and Yuki Furukawa / Bloomberg
The US$410 DeliSofter pot appears to be like very like the rice cookers ubiquitous in Japanese households and it does put together rice in 24 minutes.
Nevertheless, this invention of two Panasonic Corp engineers is designed to do extra and assist folks with swallowing difficulties.
The 2 ladies led the creation of a spin-off firm, Gifmo Co, to promote the specialised steam cooker, which they are saying can flip fried hen delicate sufficient to be sliced with a potato chip.
Photograph: Bloomberg
The machine works by first chopping into meals with a collection of blades after which subjecting it to extraordinarily excessive stress at a temperature of 120°C, rendering many acquainted meals digestible with out sacrificing the unique form or texture, Gifmo mentioned.
It guarantees to revive a way of normalcy to aged folks’s lives and diets, permitting them to mash meals with their tongue alone.
The DeliSofter is the most recent in a protracted line of nursing-care devices to come up in Japan, which has the world’s highest proportion of individuals over 65. From mechanized beds to robots that may converse with lonely retirees to Honda Motor Co exoskeletons for strolling help, the nation’s tech corporations have provide you with a slew of improvements to assist the aged.
Panasonic spun off Gifmo in 2019 to handle that rising market, concentrating on a meals phase estimated to surpass ¥200 billion (US$1.7 billion) in Japan alone by 2025.
“We all the time needed to cease offering shredded meals and have achieved what we will, however all choices have been expensive and time-consuming,” mentioned Takahiro Koyama, a care house supervisor in Panasonic’s house city of Osaka, who purchased his first unit in the summertime and later received a second. “One of the best a part of the pot is it’s just about only a button-press away. Our cooks adore it, as they don’t have to cube meals they cooked superbly. Residents are additionally completely satisfied as a result of it retains meals trying good, enhancing their urge for food.”
The DeliSofter struggles with fiber-rich meals and dishes like octopus or mushrooms, however its perform addresses an acutely felt want.
It was impressed by the expertise of Megumi Ogawa, a 32-year Panasonic veteran, as she cared for her father in his remaining years. Recognized with a situation that made him inclined to inhaling his meals, he would complain bitterly about being disadvantaged of his favourite meals. Decisions for him have been restricted to blended liquid preparations.
“I needed to commit hours to making ready particular dishes or spend US$880 a month to purchase nursing-care meals only for my father,” Ogawa, who was beforehand a high quality assurance officer, mentioned.
She received the prospect to try to resolve the issue via her employer’s Sport Changer Catapult initiative, an effort to incubate start-ups from inside much like applications run by different massive corporations like Sony Group Corp.
Ogawa paired with colleague Tokie Mizuno, who joined Panasonic in 1983, and began work on what would develop into the DeliSofter.
Neither had labored in product planning earlier than, however Mizuno was pushed to assist after seeing how a lot her grandmother, who lived to 116, was buoyed by having the ability to eat along with her household commonly.
The duo had their public debut on the US-based SXSW convention in 2017, however Panasonic later reconsidered and tried to cease them. The corporate deemed a cooking equipment for folks with swallowing difficulties an excessive amount of of a litigation danger and likewise thought mass manufacturing tough, asking Ogawa and Mizuno to return to their high quality assurance duties.
“So many who had inspired us turned away and ordered us to cease engaged on the mission,” Ogawa mentioned. “I requested why, however they only advised us that’s the lifetime of an worker at a big firm.”
Unwilling to surrender on the thought, Ogawa and Mizuno turned it right into a voluntary mission, joined by youthful colleague Masaru Morizane, who now serves as Gifmo’s chief government officer. Earlier than Panasonic, he had had stints at Corning Inc and Sony, the place he was in control of mass manufacturing for the PlayStation 3 recreation console.
“I like merchandise that really feel straight linked to shoppers, and DeliSofter was the very best instance of it that I’ve ever encountered,” Morizane mentioned.
The creators turned to BeeEdge, a start-up funding platform led by Scrum Ventures with participation from INCJ and Panasonic, to arrange Gifmo.
After the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the product’s launch, it went on sale in July final yr and has offered greater than 1,000 models since then, Gifmo mentioned.
The corporate expects to promote tens of 1000’s of pots within the years to return and finally goals to exchange the standard rice cooker, Morizane mentioned.
The DeliSofter is now being mass-produced at Panasonic’s equipment manufacturing unit in China.
That is simply the primary of many {hardware} variants, Gifmo mentioned, with different designs deliberate to handle consuming challenges that the present product shouldn’t be suited to.
“Simply as home equipment like washer freed ladies from house responsibilities and allowed them to be extra energetic in society, we received’t cease till we liberate folks from nursing care,” Mizuno mentioned.
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