Kita-Kanto

6 Year-long Grape Production in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres to Transform Japanese Agriculture and Create New Lifestyles

• #Producers
• #Technology
• #Japanese Nature
• #Japanese Food Culture
• #Experience
• #Overseas Expansion
• #Community Revitalization

Japanese fruits are world-renowned for their high quality. Behind the scenes, however, the fruit industry in Japan is facing numerous challenges, such as the aging and ensuing decline in number of producers and the rise in competition with other countries. GREENCOLLAR, an in-house venture company from Mitsui Fudosan, was established in 2019 as part of Mitsui Fudosan group’s new business proposal system, MAG!C. GREENCOLLAR’s business is to cultivate Japanese table grapes in Japan and New Zealand, two countries with opposite seasons, and to sell them around the world. In addition to tackling social challenges through its business, GREENCOLLAR is proposing a completely new lifestyle that is neither white collar nor blue collar, but “green collar”.

• #Producers
• #Technology
• #Japanese Nature
• #Japanese Food Culture
• #Experience
• #Overseas Expansion
• #Community Revitalization

Hokuriku

2 Brewing the Future of Sake

• #Producers
• #City Planning
• #Japanese Nature
• #Japanese history and traditional culture
• #Overseas Expansion
• #Fermentation
• #Public-private partnerships and collaborations
• #Sake
• #Community Revitalization

“If we let ourselves be too restricted by the perceived value of traditions worth preserving, we will be unable to move forward, and we will remain stagnant,” says Ryuichiro Masuda, the fifth head of Masuda Sake Brewery in Toyama Prefecture. Masuda is also a collaborator in the groundbreaking IWA sake project founded by Richard Geoffroy, who served as the fifth chef de cave (cellar master) of Dom Pérignon. Sake has a history of over a thousand years, but Masuda believes that the industry suffers from “a lack of branding power and strategy.” His business philosophy of “Do what needs to be done right now” has guided his efforts in big projects now coming to fruition: the IWA project, which is breathing a fresh sense of value into sake, and a town revival project to attract artists, breweries, and exciting new shops to the beautiful old neighborhood of Iwase, where he grew up, in the city of Toyama.

• #Producers
• #City Planning
• #Japanese Nature
• #Japanese history and traditional culture
• #Overseas Expansion
• #Fermentation
• #Public-private partnerships and collaborations
• #Sake
• #Community Revitalization