What It Means to be an Ambassador Connecting the World to the Charm of Sake (Part 2)
In Part 2 of the dialog between Mika Onishi, Representative Director of the Miss SAKE Association, and Kay (Kosuke) Kato, President and Investment Evangelist of WealthPark Lab, the two discuss ideas for promoting sake around the world and the importance of the roles of ambassadors and evangelists.
(Part 1)
Mika Onishi, Representative Director, Miss SAKE Association, is a native of Tokyo who graduated from the Faculty of Law at Sophia University. When she moved to the U.S. in 2006, she began working to inform people about sake and became a certified sake instructor. While working with sake and shochu at The Winery, a wine shop in New York, she also obtained WSET and Master of Cheese qualifications. After returning to Japan in 2008, she worked as a sake and shochu instructor and as a producer of food-related events, and from 2009 also began working in sales planning for Hokusetsu Sake Brewery in Niigata Prefecture. In 2014, she became Representative Director of the Miss SAKE Association, and also worked in sake and rice production before assuming her current position in September 2021.
Kay (Kosuke) Kato, President and Investment Evangelist of WealthPark Lab conducts research and disseminates information to “open new investment doors for all.” He has been in his current position since 2021.
Click here for Kosuke Kato’s profile
Ideas for promoting sake, the pride of Japan, around the world
Kato: Do you have some more ideas for promoting sake overseas?
Onishi: I have a few. I think the key is to skillfully promote what people around the world see as strengths of Japan.
For example, a person at a famous corporate group that wants to build a sake brewery in Southeast Asia said, “If we built a brewery somewhere in our home country where we could use clean water and market safe and reliable sake made with Japanese technology and under Japanese management, I’m sure it would sell well to the locals.” When I go overseas, especially in Asia, I have this strong sense that Japanese products are equated with safety and security. I think that people in Southeast Asia in particular are at a point in time where they’re taking food safety more and more seriously. You can see this in what they feed their own children. Literacy in the importance of safe and secure food is growing, and as a result, people are coming to the conclusion that they’d be willing to invest to a certain extent in safe food. I think the sake industry should pay more attention to this “safe and secure” branding for Japan.
I also believe that Japan is also a country of high cuisine, a fact that isn’t as well known in the world and need to be promoted more. As you know, Japan has the most Michelin 3-star restaurants in the world, even more than Michelin’s home country of France. Top French chefs are eager to use Japanese-style ingredients like wasabi, matcha (green tea), and aojiso (green perilla) in their culinary preparations. Whether or not we introduce these examples to the world will make a big difference in how Japanese cuisine and sake are accepted locally, and I think we should proudly let people know about them.
Kato: If Japanese restaurants are at such a high level, then the first-rate sake they serve should also get more attention. This is a little off topic, but I think Michelin’s own brand value has been greatly enhanced since making Tokyo, not Paris, the world’s top gastronomic destination. People around the world are probably impressed by rankings that are fair and don’t favor the home country’s establishments.
Next, I’d like to ask you about distribution. For our discussion, I was thinking that the globalization of beverages would be one theme, and Coca-Cola’s strategy came to mind. One example is the company’s strategy is to curb distribution costs in emerging countries where incomes are still low by giving showcase refrigerators to retailers free of charge. Since the fridges had Coca-Cola products in them, ten years later, everyone in the country would be drinking nothing but Coca-Cola products. This example shows how reining in distribution is crucial for a consumer products business. Perhaps there is an idea for marketing sake in here somewhere?
Onishi: Distribution is a really important factor. The general view when exporting sake is that 720 ml bottles of sake are a bit smaller and lighter than standard wine bottles, which are 750ml, so it shouldn’t be a problem. However, I think that in order to promote sake overseas it’s also important to come up with innovations from the conventional bottling style.
One example of this is a product called KURA ONE, which is 180 ml of sake in an aluminum can. The design is very sophisticated and the can weighs only 196g in total with 180ml of sake. This is 1/10 the weight of a glass bottle. This new package was designed with overseas export in mind. You need to use various tricks to spread sake through different cultures, and I believe that innovative ideas like the KURA ONE package, which revamp the old image of sake, could be the breakthroughs that make it stick with foreign consumers. Please look for KURA ONE on the web.
From a business standpoint, you also have to work to raise the price
Kato: I see. There are all kinds of things you can try. Next, let’s talk about pricing sake. Traveling to different regions around Japan, you’ll find many local sakes that can only be found there. While it’s great that such delicious sake is so inexpensive, I also always think it’s worth more than that. I think the value of a luxury item gets reflected in its price after it’s highly regarded by celebrities and other opinion leaders. Therefore, I personally believe that junmai daiginjo, which takes a lot of time and effort to make, could be five or ten times the current distribution price. Local folks have supported a lot of sake breweries for many years, and this is probably a difficult environment for raising the price, but it is still a real pity. I’m sure the breweries are facing a very difficult dilemma: should they stick to a lower price range to please the locals or keep in mind a higher price range that would turn the heads of people overseas? I think now it’s more important than ever to have a mindset for reviewing price range since sake consumption is rapidly declining. What is your take here?
Onishi: I think breweries are really struggling with this dilemma. For example, “Kinsei,” is a wonderful ordinary sake made by Hokusetsu Shuzo that costs ¥1,870 for a 1.8 liter bottle. Because of its quality, raising the price shouldn’t be a problem, but when you think about the long-time customers who look forward to drinking one every night after work, you just can’t do it. It’s also true that there’s still a tacit reasonable price range for daiginjos and junmai daiginjos of around ¥5,000 for a 35% polished rice 4-go (about 720ml) bottle.
But if we’re really thinking for the future, then I think we need to make more expensive products, just as you feel. The current price range we just discussed is miring the sake industry in a perpetual low-margin structure where it doesn’t even have the leeway to put money into the next round of investment. I think that with all the hard work, advanced technology, and masterly time and effort spent to brew it, sake should be valued more.
Kato: If you can’t make more than a given profit margin as a business, then you won’t be able to attract human resources from the next generation. Sake is a luxury item that’s in competition with other alcoholic drinks, so unless we take up the challenge of making good products that are not cheap, but are expensive, I think the business and the industry will disappear. It feels like both the good and the bad of Japanese business practices are coming out here.
Global liquor award results aren’t all that matters. The key to solving the challenges is in Japan.
Kato: I’d also like to ask you about the state of sake competitions, awards and ratings. Aren’t there better ways to positively affect the sake industry as a whole?
Onishi: Well, every year, many sake competitions are held in various regions, the most famous being the New Sake Competition held by the National Tax Agency in Saijo, Hiroshima, which is a contest to measure the skills of the toji (master brewers). It used to be thought of as a competition of skill to bring sake to the “ideal taste,” and only sake brewed with 35% polished Yamada Nishiki rice and Kumamoto yeast (Association №9 yeast) could get the top rankings. However, the system has been changed so that now sake grades other than ginjo-shu can also compete.
Kato: I get it. It’s a contest of craftsmanship among the sake brewers. That’s a wonderful thing, but from the desired information from the consumer standpoint is slightly different. I think the famous wine sommeliers give their evaluations more comprehensively; they recommend interesting and tasty items from the consumer’s point of view, and the consumer uses this as a basis for judgment. Sommeliers are the interpreters between manufacturer and consumer, evaluating from the buyer’s perspective.
Onishi: To use your analogy, the toji who submits his own sake to a sake competition has only one chance to have it drunk by the judges, so he is well aware of the importance of the customer’s opinion. There are also consumer-oriented sake competitions. For example, an American sommelier is a judge at the U.S. National Sake Appraisal, and a French sommelier serves as a judge at the Kura Master in France. At these events, the more unusual sake tends to get higher appraisals. Since tastes differ from country to country, no one can say which one’s the best, but it would be good if more of this sommelier type of evaluation from the consumer’s perspective were also used for sake.
Kato: Yes. I think you need to make efforts in various ways to make consumers aware of the appeal of these products and get them to pick some up. The thinking that if you focus on making quality products then consumers will surely follow you sounds right, but if you go too strongly this way, it’s easy to fall into the trap of making products out of self-interest that don’t consider the actual user’s point of view.
As some best-selling books say, the idea that the way a product is conveyed or the way it looks is 90% of the game, is a very important one in industry and business. Especially amid the information overflow available today, if you aren’t resourceful at the point of entry where consumers see and hear your product, even a good product won’t be picked up, and your business won’t succeed. I think it’s even more noticeable when it comes to global business.
You can learn how to communicate and how to be seen. Contests are the best educational programs for acquiring soft skills
Kato: Lastly, please tell us about the Miss SAKE contest. Personally, I think that contests are wonderful in that they let people focus on a single goal toward which they can develop themselves over a certain period of time. I’d love to hear from you, the actual organizer and host of the contest, about the appeal of the contest and its ambassadors.
Onishi: The main pillar of the Miss SAKE Association’s various activities is to promote Japanese excellence from Japan to the rest of the world, and the contest is a series of training processes that select ambassadors for these activities. Many contestants have a global mindset and aspire to cherish their identity as Japanese. Many of them feel proud of their Japanese identity after having studied abroad and are motivated by a desire to engage in promoting Japan to the world.
Actually, many people have such aspirations, but I don’t think a lot of official contests or programs in the world support them. If you’re appointed as a Miss SAKE ambassador, the next day you might have the chance to fly overseas representing Japan to give a speech at a Japanese embassy after the ambassador. This kind of experience in environments you wouldn’t ordinarily have in daily life would turn out to be great assets down the road in life.
Miss SAKE offers contestants a several months-long hands-on educational program called the Nadeshiko Program. Thanks to the variety of activities offered by this program, contestants can of course learn about sake, but also learn how to dress yourself in a kimono and wear your hair in Japanese style, study an introduction to flower arrangement and tea ceremony, experience Edo faceted glass and Japanese paper making, study presentation skills and English conversation, and since the participants are women in their 20s and 30s, they can also listen to a talk by a professor from a university hospital on cervical cancer and birth control. Some of the contestants even enter the contest more because of the Nadeshiko Program than because they want be Miss SAKE.
As an organizer, I get great pleasure from seeing people being given a chance to change themselves and then seeing their transformation. We hope that by keeping these initiatives going for 10 or 20 years, we can create a foundation for Japanese people to spread their wings around the world. And the growth of our ambassadors will help us realize growth for the sake industry around the world.
Kato: I see. You can only educate people so much sitting at a desk, so I think it is very valuable, especially for Japanese people, to get this kind of hands-on soft skills training to hone their communication skills, and also provide them with opportunities to work globally. Diving into unusual situations and come in contact with different cultures and people of different ages, genders, and nationalities, is challenging and stressful, but it’s also important for individual growth. My job title is “evangelist,” and I’m like an ambassador because I’m in the business of conveying something to people, so just now I felt once again my desire to always value such opportunities to interact with people I don’t usually associate with on a daily basis.
I hope that sake itself will visit many countries, and if it can meet many people it has never met before, then it should be able to grow significantly. I hope that, along with Miss SAKE, it will spread its wings and take off to the world.
Well, with November already here and the weather getting colder, I guess it’s time to start drinking more heated sake.
Onishi: This season is the best time to enjoy sake. Lots of new sake is coming out, so be sure to enjoy them at different temperatures, too.
Kato: Thank you very much for sharing your valuable insight into the sake industry. We’ll also keep an eye on Miss SAKE’s future exploits. And tonight, I’m going to have some sake!
