Turn The "Snack Away" Generation - Challenge Of "Koikeya" And "SB Foods"

This week, we shine the spotlight on two organisations - Koikeya, the first company to mass-produce potato chips in Japan, and S&B Foods, known for creating tubed seasonings. 

Koikeya’s headquarters are located in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo. It has about 900 employees and boasts sales of 30 billion yen, with 400 million bags of potato chips being shipped out each year. The company is constantly coming up with new products. This time, it decides to tie up with a sake brewery to produce potato chips which go well with sake. The company holds a meeting to discuss its strategy and it is led by the company’s president, Mr Akira Sato. Ms Saki Nomura, the section chief of the marketing department, and Ms Yuka Inoue from the development department 

Ms Nomura and Ms Inoue have previously worked together to create the “Mikansei” potato chips - featuring flavours of shrimp and oyster with olive oil - to pair with Yamashiroya sake. are also at the meeting. They had collaborated with sake brewery Koshimeijo which has more than 200 years of history. This time round, Ms Nomura and Ms Inoue decide to join forces with Suigei Brewery, which was established in 1872. It is located in Kochi City, Shikoku. Kagami River - named as one of the 100 best waters of Japan - runs through the city; the water is used to make the sake. They visit the brewery and meet its president, Mr Hirokuni Okura. They discuss creating a snack to pair with Suigei sake. They plan to launch the new potato chips on the market by mid-November.

After leaving the brewery, Ms Inoue and her partner go to Hirome Ichiba, where sake lovers gather and relax. They want to gather ideas on the flavours they can use for the new product. Mr Okura also invites the Koikeya team that evening to introduce them to Kochi's sake culture. Kochi is known for its Sawachi cuisine, which includes items like seared bonito, grilled and salted sweetfish and shutou, which refers to the innards of bonito. Their meal is paired with Suigei sake. Mr Okura suggests that the Koikeya team enhances the potato chips’ flavour with Kochi's products.

Ms Inoue returns to Koikeya’s headquarters in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo. She starts shortlisting the flavours that could be paired with Suigei. She develops new seasonings, with flavours such as wasabi, stewed sea bream and sea lettuce. She creates new flavours by balancing these seasonings and then does a taste check. After narrowing down the choices, the product development team will taste them. She prepares five samples of potato chips to pair with the Suigei sake. The choices are stewed sea bream, seared bonito, wasabi, bonito broth soy sauce and bonito shutou. The team will taste the chips while drinking the sake and then choose the one which they think best pairs with Suigei. They eventually pick the bonito shutou-flavoured chips, for their distinct aroma and strong flavour. 

After two months of testing, Ms Inoue meets President Sato to let him taste the chips. He tells her to further refine it to make it more distinctive so that the flavours stand out. She finally succeeds in getting the taste right and the final product, a collaboration between Koikeya and sake brewery Suigei, is launched in September 2022. The bonito shutou-flavoured potato chips go well with the fruity and bold sake. 

We shift our focus to S&B Foods, the first company to develop tubed seasonings in Japan. They are used by households as condiments, with different varieties of flavours, such as yuzu pepper, plum pulp, green shiso, salted green onion, lemon, garlic, basil, Japanese ginger and cilantro. Out of the company’s 118 billion yen sales, 21.7 billion yen comes from its tubed seasonings, with 17 million wasabi-flavoured tubes being sold in 2021. 

S&B Foods’ Oshinomura test farm is located at the foot of Mt. Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture. It is 3,100 feet above sea level. Wasabi made with water from Mt. Fuji is grown here. The test farm does research on wasabi so that it can be produced in varying environments. 

We meet Mr Kosuke Nakajima at S&B Foods in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo and he tells us about the company’s history. S&B Foods currently sells over 3,000 types of products. The product that started it all is its curry powder that was sold for the first time in Japan about 100 years ago. The employee cafeteria serves meals made with tube seasonings to familiarise the employees with the company’s products. 

The person in charge of the tubed seasonings is Mr Masayuki Omachi, the marketing planning department’s project manager. In addition to customers in their 50s and 60s, he wants to attract those in their 20s and 30s by using new ingredients. For example, the company’s Evolving Tubes, with ingredients such as chopped lemon, chopped yuzu and chopped green shiso, are selling well among customers who do not want to waste time chopping and grating. In 2017, the company had seven types of tubes, with sales of 200 million yen. In 2021, the company’s 19 types of tubes raked in sales of 1.2 billion yen.  

The company has been trying to develop a particular product for a long time - tubed grated daikon radish. Grated daikon radish needs to be fresh, with a crisp texture. This project has been in the works for five years, with more than 200 tastings conducted. The company has been working hard to recreate the moisture content of grated daikon. Ms Yasuhara is the person in charge of the project and she has been re-evaluating the components of the product to produce a stronger crisp texture. Ms Yasuhara finally gets approval for the tubed grated daikon radish and it is released for sale in supermarkets in September 2022.  

On the other hand, Mr Nabetani is in charge of advertising and has been working on an initiative to appeal to the younger generation. It is called Tuber Style, which refers to using tubed seasonings to your personal preference. He collaborates with Ms Amin, who has 500,000 followers on Instagram. She has been promoting Tuber Style and also the tubed grated daikon radish on social media.

Tips:

1)    Check out Kochi City’s Kagami River, one of the 100 best waters in Japan
2)    Tubed seasonings are ideal for those who want to whip up a quick meal