AGAR AND RELATED PHYCOCOLLOIDS 69 



Table 15. Agar Production in Japan from 1926 through 1945.* 

 Figures Are Tons (2000 Lbs.). 



Year Tons Year Tons 



The United States has been one of the heaviest buyers of Japanese agar. Except 

 for the war years, the amount imported has increased as new uses were developed. 

 The substitution of synthetic products has hardly begun in the case of agar and 

 must be anticipated for the future. Table 16 shows quantities of Japanese agar 

 sent to the United States since 1933. 



ABLE 16. Importation of Japanese Agar into the United States 

 FROM 1933 through 1946. 



Year Pounds Value 



The American Agar Industry. California. The American agar industry originated 

 in California in 1919 when Chokichi Matsuoka, familiar with the agar industry 

 of his native Japan, completed experimental work showing that agar could be 

 made from the Gelidiuni cartilagineum t abundant along the Pacific Coast of 

 southern California and Mexico. He formed the American Agar Company, which 

 began to produce significant quantities of agar in 1920 at Glendale, California, but 

 was unable to compete successfully with the low cost of imported agar. Matsuoka 

 was issued two patents, the first (1921) of which described a process essentially 

 like the Japanese, except that mechanical refrigeration was proposed. The second 

 (1923) dealt with rendering dry agar brittle enough to pulverize readily by coat- 

 ing it with a sugar solution and redrying it. 



* Adams, 1947. 



f Matsuoka claimed to have used "Gloiopeltis." This genus (Gloiopeltis) is not a 

 source of agar, however. It is quite certain that he used Gelidium cartilagineum. 



