Tokyo: Japanese companies have started sending food trucks to areas in the Noto Peninsula hit by the massive New Year’s Day earthquake to provide hot meals free of charge to help alleviate the stress of those affected.

Similar aid involving highly mobile food trucks was provided after the 2011 huge earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan and after the 2016 quakes in the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto.

Following the magnitude-7.6 Jan. 1 quake that mainly hit the central prefecture of Ishikawa, the Japan Foodservice Association put together a list of around 10 member companies in the restaurant industry that could send food trucks to affected areas.

Based on the list, the agriculture ministry worked out details with local governments. “We’ve received many requests from quake-affected areas for hot meals,” agriculture minister Tetsushi Sakamoto told a press conference on Friday.

On Thursday, Zensho Holdings Co., the operator of the Sukiya “gyudon” beef-on-rice restaurant chain, started serving meals from food trucks. Its trucks are expected to visit around 10 evacuation centers in the Ishikawa city of Nanao until Jan. 20.

Nissin Food Products Co. plans to send food trucks equipped with water heaters to evacuation centers in Nanao on Friday and Sunday to hand out its products, including nutritious-balanced instant curry products.

Restaurant chain operator Colowide Co. has started offering meals for elderly residents, in addition to other food options such as gyudon, curry and “tonjiru” pork miso soup.

The company held a soup run in the Ishikawa town of Shika on Tuesday and Wednesday. It plans to move to Nanao to offer meals until Monday.

Colowide said that it prepares ingredients at a base located in the western prefecture of Shiga. The ingredients, along with gas cylinders and other equipment needed to cook the meals that are stockpiled at a store just outside of Kanazawa, the capital of Ishikawa, are then sent over to the quake-affected areas, where the meals are prepared.

The company said that it has adopted this system for its aid efforts to avoid causing trouble for such areas.

JIJI Press