Yakult Factory Visit

When I received a note from the playgroup school 2 weeks ago that it would be bringing the students to the Yakult factory for their next excursion trip, I signed Heidi and myself up almost immediately. Daddy couldn't join us as he had reservist training.

And this morning, we set off for Yakult factory.

When we reached the entrance of the factory, we saw Yakult in many different bottle packaging sold in other countries.

We were then brought and seated in a room where the lady guide there introduced and explained to us the history, the benefits of taking Yakults etc. From there we learned about Lactobacillus Casei Shirota Strain (named after the founder Dr Minoru Shirota), a bacteria which multiply once every 17 minutes and that there are about 10 billion of such bacteria in just 1 bottle of Yakult. We even got to see these"live" bacteria under a microscope shown through the projection screen.

After the "little lesson" on Yakult, we watched a slide presentation and an animated cartoon show (while sipping bottles of free yakult) :D

We then had a tour around the factory. No photos were allowed so we had to keep our cameras. We got to view the rooms where they grow and cultivate the bacteria. We also saw the manufacturing plant in operation - how they make the bottles by plastic injection moulding and the packing, filling and sealing procedures of Yakult. Heidi was very fascinated as she watched the little bottles moving very fast down a conveyor belt in a row.

After the factory tour, most of us bought Yakult at a cheaper price to bring home. This tour was indeed an enriching and educational one. I'm not sure if the young kids know or understand what was really going on, but we adults definitely have learnt a lot of interesting facts about the good bacteria in our bodies and gained a better understanding of Yakult.