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What is a Spout Pouch Container? A spout pouch container is an integrated package consisting of three elements: the "spout" which serves as the pouring opening, the "cap" which allows for opening and closing, and the "pouch film" which forms the main body of the container. We are responsible for manufacturing and supplying the "spout" and "cap" components. These components are then heat-sealed to the pouch film to complete the final spout pouch container. Original Samples for Clearer Proposals In the past, due to a lack of technology to integrate them into a pouch, we sometimes had to propose just the spouts and caps as standalone parts to our customers. However, simply showing the individual components before they became a complete spout pouch container made it difficult for customers to visualize the actual usage scenario or the overall design impression. Therefore, to more clearly convey the appeal of our "spout" and "cap," we began creating our own original proposal samples by designing the pouch film ourselves. For beauty products, we use calm color schemes and sophisticated designs that suggest cosmetics or hair care items. For food products, we incorporate photos of fruits or dishes to help customers imagine the product's use on a daily dining table. While these pouch designs are not meant to be commercialized products, the goal is to help customers visualize concretely: "If we use this spout and cap, this is what the finished product could look like." The Process of Creating Proposal Spout Pouches   When creating the samples, we start ...

For seven days, from August 19th to 25th, 2025, we exhibited at the "Osaka Healthcare Pavilion," located within the venue of the Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai. During this exhibition, we showcased our spout pouch products and a next-generation spout pouch that is currently under development. It was a valuable opportunity for us to directly present Aska's technological capabilities and its potential in the healthcare sector to the many visitors. The Future of Healthcare as Envisioned by Spout Pouches In addition to our existing products, we also introduced new spout pouches that are currently under development. We exhibited the "AS8.7 Spout Cap," which features a smaller caliber than conventional products, achieving lighter weight and improved design, as well as the even more compact caliber "AS5 Oval Cap." Visitors showed keen interest in the spout pouches, which featured shapes they had never seen before. We also received questions about the potential for various applications, including medical, nursing care, and disaster preparedness, often sensing high expectations for product development that meets on-site needs. In particular, there was high interest in hygiene and portability, underscoring the renewed attention on the convenience of the spout pouch format. Atmosphere at the Venue During the exhibition period (August 19th–25th), the pavilion received 228,154 visitors, resulting in a continuous and bustling crowd. The Osaka Healthcare Pavilion is a prominent area featuring exhibits focused on the future of health, medicine, and welfare. Throughout the exhibition, not only our booth but also those of other exhibitors were crowded with visitors daily. Especially on weekends, we ...

New Data Utilization Methods Offered by Aska Company [The Sensing Data Utilization Workshop] Aska Company has been hosting various seminars since 2016. While we continuously upgrade the content of these seminars, we are now introducing a newly offered workshop. What Exactly is Sensing?? Sensing is a technology that uses sensors to detect surrounding information—such as temperature, light, or motion—and visualize it as data. For example, when your smartphone detects a tilt and rotates the screen, or when a smartwatch measures your heart rate, those are both examples of sensing. Recently, sensing has been gaining attention as its application spreads across various fields, including increasing efficiency in factories, predicting harvests in agriculture, and managing health in medicine. The Sensing Workshop will provide you with methods for acquiring and utilizing this sensing data, and show you the new value that can be generated from it. Sensing the Factory to Cut Wasted Electricity?! Aska Company has installed sensors throughout its factory to collect data. By utilizing this data, we have achieved various sensing initiatives, such as eliminating wasted electricity and promoting energy savings. These examples are currently introduced as the "Sensing Case Studies" segment in a select theoretical lecture within some of our seminars, and they have generated a great deal of interest from many participants. As a next step for those who have attended that seminar, we are now launching a Sensing Workshop focused specifically on your company's own problems and challenges. Introducing a Sensing Data Utilization Case Study! 　Case Study 1: Over ¥3 Million in Annual ...

Aska Company is actively developing a variety of eco-friendly products. We have completed several of these that we can now offer to our customers, and we'd like to introduce them in this issue of our Market News. ASBP-16 Spout We offer various spouts for spout pouches, including eco-friendly options made with biomass materials. These spouts are on par with conventional plastic ones in terms of appearance and function. You can choose from two types: one with a biomass content of 30% and another with 90% or more. This sustainable spout has a proven track record of adoption by our customers. AS9.5 Barrier Spout and Cap While spout pouches are an eco-friendly packaging option, traditional spouts and caps have a weakness: insufficient oxygen barrier performance, making them unsuitable for the long-term storage of certain foods. To address this issue, we developed the AS9.5 Barrier Spout and Cap. It improves oxygen barrier performance by about 50% compared to standard spouts and has been proven in our own tests to effectively suppress oxidation of contents. Currently, we have confirmed this performance with a 9.5 mm caliber spout, but we can also use the same barrier resin to mold spouts of other calibers and shapes. We can flexibly respond to requests for developing different sizes.   ASMR-16 Hinge Cap The ASMR-16 Hinge Cap was developed with the goal of material recycling and effectively using in-house waste. This product is a result of our sustainable efforts to re-resource waste instead of discarding it. While we are dedicated to reducing defective ...

Thank you very much for always reading our market news. At Asuka Company, we are building a new spout pouch development system centered on the “development mold” we introduced previously in order to further increase the speed of our proposals to customers. This time, in order to realize the shapes and functional tests desired by our customers more quickly, we have introduced a spout welding testing machine, enabling us to make proposals using spout pouches that can be tested with actual contents, in addition to the shapes of spouts and caps. The newly introduced spout welding test machine operates manually. While the number of weldable units is limited due to its manual operation, it offers flexibility that is not easily affected by the shape or form of the bag. By providing samples of our spouts welded using this spout welding test machine, we can now clearly propose how they can be used, whereas previously, when proposing spouts or caps alone, it was difficult to visualize how they would actually be used. Additionally, this machine supports the development of new spout shapes by enabling internal verification of the relationship between spout shape and welding defects, as well as evaluating the functionality of spout pouches. This machine is a prototype machine, so it is not possible to provide actual products for sale to customers using this welding test machine. It is solely intended for “prototype purposes” leading up to the actual product.     Proposals that demonstrate ease of use With the introduction of soldering tests, we ...

Thank you for reading Market News. Aska Company has been developing products using molds called development molds in order to speed up the development process. In this issue, we would like to introduce our Rapid Mold production process. Please note that the development molds are used for our own AS series products and are not applicable to the process of commissioned development of customer's products. Translated with DeepL.com (free version) What are development molds? Development molds are simple molds that enable product development at low cost and in a short period of time. It is possible to use actual molding resin for molding, which enables early proposal of products with shared functions and textures with customers and facilitates smooth development. Our company uses a common base mold and a mold structure that allows replacement of only the product part, which makes it possible to mold products of different shapes and sizes in a short period of time. We also have two types of development molds, Agile Mold and Rapid Mold, which are used differently depending on the application of the product. Agile Mold A mold product part formed by a 3D printer. Molding with actual molding resin is possible. Production time is about 5 days to 2 weeks. Rapid Mold This uses a metal mold product part. This is close to the actual molding die and allows evaluation of products up to a certain degree. Production time is about 2 weeks to 1 month.     Metal mold Rapid Mold The advantage of rapid molding ...

We often talk about "barrier properties" on our company blog, and this time, we'd like to introduce a method for visualizing the oxygen barrier performance of our products. This method was unveiled at our internal MK Presentation (our QC Circle Activity Presentation) in April 2025. What Are Barrier Properties? Barrier properties refer to a material's ability to block gases, moisture, and odors. For example, when food is stored in a container with oxygen barrier properties, oxidation can be prevented, extending the shelf life and helping reduce food waste. However, even if a pouch container itself has barrier properties, oxygen can still pass through if the cap or spout used with it doesn't. This leads to issues such as quality deterioration or discoloration of the contents.   Caps and Spouts with Oxygen Barrier Properties To address the issue of oxygen permeation through caps and spouts, ASKA Company has developed the “AS Barrier Spout,” a cap and spout system with built-in oxygen barrier performance. We conducted third-party testing, and the results showed that oxygen transmission was reduced by approximately 50% compared to conventional components. However, external testing comes with challenges—it takes time and incurs costs. Moreover, numerical data alone (such as oxygen transmission rate) doesn't always convey the effectiveness of the barrier performance in a way that resonates with users. This was a major concern for us: how to help people intuitively understand the actual benefits of barrier performance beyond just the numbers. Evaluating Barrier Properties In-House Oxygen barrier performance is particularly important for food packaging. To ...

Thank you for reading Market News. Among the “AS Family” of products and services offered by the Aska Company, our original product “AS Spout Series”, an environmentally friendly container, continues to evolve day by day as we aim to create products that meet customer requests and market needs. As of April 2025, the “AS Spout Series” offers six selectable spout inner diameters (Φ8.7, Φ9.5, Φ10, Φ16, Φ18, and Φ26.5) and has expanded to boast a total lineup of 25 types including caps and accessories. This allows us to flexibly respond to various applications and requirements. Each series in the “AS Spout Series” has its own unique features and numerous points of interest, making it difficult to explain everything in a few words. Therefore, we have created a catalog that summarizes the details of each product, which we deliver to our customers along with the product. This time, we have renewed the catalog, and we would like to introduce some of the changes. Additions to the Ministerial Ordinance Concerning Compositional Standards, etc.for Milk and Milk Products The Ministerial Ordinance on Milk etc. is an Ordinance of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare that stipulates ingredient standards, production methods, and container and packaging standards for milk and dairy products, etc., and is based on the Food Sanitation Law. Acquisition of the Milk etc. Ministerial Ordinance (Group 2) differs for each series. In addition, we have received many inquiries from customers who are considering using our products for food applications. Therefore, we have now added that information ...