Tsukinoi Brewery

March 24th, 2022

 

Exporting Overseas

 

Tsunokake：Where are your main business deals taking place?

Sakamoto：Our main dealers are the local liquor shops here, those in Tokyo, and those from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south. We also export overseas.

Tsunokake：How long have you been exporting?

Sakamoto：It's been ten years. About ten years ago, an influential newspaper printed an article in their national version about our development of the organic sake Nanotsuki. A trade company in Kobe read the article and called us to say they wanted to export this product. We said, "We have no experience in exporting and know nothing about its procedure." They said, "Don't worry. All procedures needed for export will be taken care of by us. All you have to do is to deliver the product just like you do in your domestic deals." I wasn't sure about that at all, but anyway delivered the products, and eventually, this became our first proud export. That was the first time I noticed the Japanese Sake market outside Japan.

Tsunokake：So you found an opportunity in the overseas market.

Sakamoto：Yes, but things weren't that easy afterward. Indeed, our sake crossed the ocean to reach Hong Kong, but nobody but our company had to sell our sake there.

Tsunokake：Wasn't the buyer responsible for the sales?

Sakamoto：Of course, the trading company in Kobe, together with the local Hong Kong buyer, supported us in various ways. But our sake brand was unknown in Hong Kong, so the sales were not easy. We visited Hong Kong many times with the agent in the trading company; there, we planned a tasting party, directly talked to the local department store for possible business, and tried other various sales efforts. We had bullet train trips in which we departed Japan on Friday night and returned on Sunday. The trading company encouraged us by saying, "The beginning is the important part so let us keep going on." We also couldn't give up on the way since we had already delivered the product.

Tsunokake：I imagine making sales in an unfamiliar foreign country difficult.

Sakamoto：Yes, it was. We didn't have a second thought when we first shipped out our product. It was a hard lesson to experience the harsh reality of selling products in a foreign land. But gradually, our sales effort let our sake brand be recognized in Hong Kong. Since then, we have kept strong bonds with the Hong Kong buyer, and even in this coronavirus pandemic, we export a stable amount of our product there.

Tsunokake：Though the sales in unfamiliar foreign places should have been complex, your effort led to your current success in the export business. Do you have any other destination countries?

Sakamoto：Now, we export to the United States of America, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherland, and other countries.

Tsunokake：Tell us how you explored those countries.

Sakamoto：First, we increased the export destinations one by one through the connections of our acquaintances. And for European countries, it started with Lufthansa Airlines when our sake and plum liquor were hired in their first-class seats. Thanks to the chef in affiliated foreign foreigners, we had been delivering our sake, that was realized. The chef recommended our sake to Lufthansa, and as the Germans prioritized the taste of sake the most, they decided to hire our sake and plum liquor because they liked the taste. It turned out that the overseas market, unlike the domestic one, had no territory battles with other breweries and liquor shops. They were relatively free for the sales activity if the taste was good.

Tsunokake：You're saying the overseas market was a blue ocean.

Sakamoto：That's it. On the other hand, overseas sales revealed many obstacles for a small brewery like us to tackle. It costs a lot of travel expenses, and you need to find a suitable interpreter to overcome the language barrier in the business negotiations and sales activities.

 

Overseas sales utilizing the public aids

 

Tsunokake：So how did you manage all these things?

Sakamoto：We utilized the overseas extension projects implemented by JETRO, an foreign affairs expert, and Ibaraki Prefecture Small Business Promotion Agency at the time.

Tsunokake：Tell us about the specific projects you joined.

Sakamoto：We utilized Ibaraki Industrial Prefecture Creation Fund Project in 2015 by Ibaraki Prefecture Small Business Promotion Agency and made an exhibition at a Japanese Sake trade fair in New York. Due to the high travel and hotel expenses, it wasn't easy for us to visit the USA, but the project covered part of our cost to allow us to stay there and make sales to local buyers, restaurants, and liquor shops.
I also would like to mention the actual contract case in Vietnam. Ibaraki Prefecture had an export project to Vietnam, and in 2016 they opened an antenna shop in Hanoi. We joined that shop and visited there to do sales activities such as talking to local restaurant owners or planning a dinner event of product tastings with interpreters.
These sales activities led to the recognition of our sake brands, and three kinds of sake, including pure-rice sake, were hired in an elegant Japanese restaurant there, and finally, our sake was to be delt by a local distributor.

Tsunokake：The sake they hired in that time was the organic one?

Sakamoto：Unfortunately, it wasn't. In Vietnam, Japanese sake had a little share, and organic sake, which is still differentiated and more expensive than ordinary sake, wasn't much needed. But here, the word "organic" played a vital role in the choice of our brand. The Vietnamese owner of the Japanese restaurant who hired our sake also ran nine other coffee houses, as Vietnam has a lot of cafes in every town because of the history of the long governance by France. Among the competing cafes, she differentiated her shops with "organic coffee beans." That let her recognize our organic sake, and our business negotiation progressed smoothly to a successful export contract. That's one reason Vietnam has the highest share of our overseas export.

Tsunokake：Do you have other prominent exporting destinations?

Sakamoto：We also export a considerable amount to Malaysia. The deal with Malaysia started when we met a Malaysian buyer at our booth in Food Japan 2016 in Singapore, where we put our exhibit in a joint booth installed by Ibaraki Small Business Promotion Agency. The buyer was interested in our brand later, so our managing director flew to Malaysia to meet him. The buyer then, in turn, flew to Japan and visited our brewery. We took time to get acquainted well to trust each other. After about a year, we made the official contract. We have been exporting the Hikoichi brand every year in container units.

 

NEXT　Future perspective ---＞＞

 

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