Creating a complex pasta dish that takes advantage of multiple fermentation actions was something that we had envisioned since the start of our food and beverage department. It was not an easy task, and after much experimentation and time spent by our chefs and staff, we were able to create a grand menu that could be served without reservations.
The concept of “FERMENTED FOAM SAUCE PASTA with VIAMVER®︎ TOMATO & PORCINI” is to serve the fermented foam sauce, which is a combination of multiple fermentations, as the main ingredient. For this reason, we use short pasta that is easily absorbed by the sauce. The sauce is made by fermenting several kinds of mushrooms, including mushrooms, with Viamver®︎ yeast to mask the aroma and concentrate the umami flavor. In addition, the lactic acid fermentation of milk gives it a sour and rich taste, and these are combined into a creamy foam sauce. This sauce is marbled with Viamver®︎ yeast-fermented tomato sauce, which is rich in sourness and umami, so that the flavor changes as the sauce binds together. The sauce is a cross between yeast-fermented mushrooms and tomatoes and lacto-fermented milk, flavored with crushed porcini mushrooms, and spicy and bitter with black pepper and fried parsley. I hope you will try it.
【FERMENTED FOAM SAUCE PASTA with VIAMVER®︎ TOMATO & PORCINI】 This short pasta dish is made by fermenting several kinds of mushrooms with Viamver®︎ yeast to concentrate their umami flavor, then combining them with rich lactic acid fermented milk to create a foamy sauce. The acidity of the marbled yeast-fermented tomato sauce is combined with the rich aroma of porcini mushrooms. Fermented vegetable salad included.
【VARIOUS FERMENTED VEGETABLE SALAD with VIAMVER®︎ SEA FOIE GRAS & TOFU MOUSSE】 Chef Sato and his staff added fermented sea foie gras and tofu mousse and vegetable flakes to the succulent vegetarian-style salad that Jonas pursued with bitter roasted nuts and Viamver®︎ yogurt dressing, resulting in a variety of fermented vegetable salads.
The media outlet “relay,” which focuses on business succession, wrote an article about the efforts of Takahashi, the seventh generation.
In the short time since he took over the family business, he has been confronted with situations and environments he did not want to be in. He pursued his own identity in the industry, mixing his personal dreams with his livelihood, doing both inbound and outbound business with a pioneering spirit. Struggled to develop an organization that could replace personnel and instill a new philosophy inside and outside the organization. Pursuing new areas of fermentation through technological research both inside and outside the industry, rather than repeating past methods. These are just a few examples.
Taking over a family business means changing the values that existed in the past, and this involves a lot of problem solving and pain. Also, the challenges and pains are blameless and you have to overcome them alone without blaming anyone. This is the very will to face one’s own life and take responsibility, as is the case with many people who are on their own in the secular world and society.
Through the activities of Yamamo, I would like to create an example of how traditional industries can be rebuilt from the local level. I believe that this is the fusion of the inherited industry and the thoughts of the seventh generation, and that it is the cultural and creative role of Japan, where many traditional industries still exist. I hope you will read the article._mediainfo._magazine
From the path of an architect to the seventh generation of a miso and soy sauce brewer. Becoming an unprecedented brewery with creative thinking
Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company, located in Yuzawa City, Akita Prefecture, is a long-established brewery that has been in business since 1867, and Mr. Yasushi Takahashi is the seventh generation to take over the family business. Mr. Yasushi Takahashi, the seventh generation to take over the family business, has been involved in a number of unconventional activities, such as building a new café, revamping the packaging to expand overseas, and recently, using his own yeast, Viamver®, to make alcoholic beverages. Why has he been able to go beyond the conventional boundaries of the brewing industry? We spoke with him about the source of his passion.
The world of miso and soy sauce is lame. That’s why I’m going to change it.
When he was a child, Mr. Takahashi never wrote “soy sauce shop” in his dreams for the future. His parents never asked him to take over the business, and he always thought the old-fashioned family business was “lame.
However, he is the only male among his siblings. In his senior year, he had a hard time deciding whether to go to graduate school to pursue architecture or to go back to university to study fermentation in order to take over the family business.
Mr. Takahashi said, “If I take over the family business, I will live in Akita. I thought that the world was not so sweet that I could balance the family business and my career as an architect. Above all, I didn’t want to make a choice that I would regret when I died. If I took over and ruined the family business, I could give up, but if I didn’t take over and ruined the family business, I would feel guilty. I couldn’t accept the idea of destroying the family business without taking over.
I decided to take over the business and came back to Akita, but there was no commute to the family business, and it was difficult to switch on and off between home and work. He had little free time to spend, and as he had just joined the company, the stress of not having a place to stay grew, and he clashed with his parents. Somewhere in her mind, she blamed her parents for about a year. The image of a “lame miso and soy sauce shop” that he had had since he was a child of repeating the past did not change even after he took over the business.
However, Mr. Takahashi was able to do something because he had this image.
Mr. Takahashi said, “What would you think if you were told that you would be a miso and soy sauce maker for the rest of your life? I’d still say, ‘Lame. The fact that there are no new entrants to the miso and soy sauce industry nationwide means that our industry is not as attractive as other industries. Unfortunately, I think that’s the general perception of our industry at the moment.
In terms of the industry’s value system, if the greatest value is placed on past manufacturing methods and repetition of the past, the odds are not in the favor of new entrants. We need to find value in both past methods and current approaches. Meanwhile, overseas, young craft miso and soy sauce makers are emerging, especially in Europe. They are creating new products without being bound by common sense. The world’s perception of miso and soy sauce is about to change.
There’s no point in carrying on thinking it’s lame. You’ve made your own decision to go down this path, so you have to make it into an industry that you feel is ‘not tacky. I believe that I have a mission to do that.
A Decade of Solitude. Rebranding the company to bring new value to traditional industries.
Mr. Takahashi decided to turn his family’s business into a “non-dull” industry. Originally, he was planning to expand overseas, so he rebranded the entire company by writing labels in Japanese and English and creating a foreign-language website so that it could be sold overseas.
Mr. Takahashi said, “What I pay attention to when I start something new is to review the past. There is always a flow from the past in what we have now, and within that flow, there are things that will never change. Rather than denying the past and moving forward, we try to respect the past and then build new values.
Miso and soy sauce is not something we made ourselves. I think miso and soy sauce shops are in the business of selling the traditions that have been created in the past. When we think about how we can sell our products overseas, we can add value because our miso and soy sauce are brewed in historic breweries. We need to rebuild the tradition and rebrand it. I believed that by doing so, we could expand overseas.
Two years after Mr. Takahashi took over, the company began doing business with Taiwan, and in its fifth year, it began doing business overseas in earnest. Mr. Takahashi’s own rebranding efforts have been highly evaluated, and in 2013 he received the Good Design Award.
As the seventh generation, Mr. Takahashi was off to a good start from the outside. However, things did not go so well inside the company. After graduating from university, Mr. Takahashi joined the company as one of the youngest members of the management team. He had to organize the older employees who had been with the company for a long time. In addition to the daily routine tasks, Mr. Takahashi asked employees to be more creative in their work by asking for their opinions on plans to increase sales and improve the efficiency of internal operations. There was a time when employees in their 30s and 40s who could not keep up with the changes in the environment were quitting every month. He said that at that time, he was most emotionally exhausted because he thought that he would “destroy the family business” due to the human resource issues.
Mr. Takahashi said, “I took it for granted that if there were creative elements in our daily lives, it would be more enjoyable for our employees. But that wasn’t the case. On the contrary, some of them found it hard. I knew that my actions were not understood by the other employees, but the trend of people quitting for a while was quite heartbreaking.
After about 10 years, I finally realized my true feelings. After about ten years, I finally found someone who understood my true intentions.
Parents’ reaction is the world’s reaction. Communicate what you want to do through your customers.
It took some time to get his employees, and even his parents, who were closest to him, to understand.
Mr. Takahashi’s parents were against the idea of setting up a café space, hoping that it would help revitalize the community by attracting activists and stimulate the community and employees. Today, the entrance is decorated with modern art in vivid colors that seem far removed from the image of a miso and soy sauce shop, and the desks and chairs are antiques. There are antique desks and chairs, and the Buddhist altar can be used as an eat-in space, but Mr. Takahashi had his own reasons for doing so.
Mr. Takahashi: “My parents have always watched over me, even though they didn’t understand, but when I told them I was going to use the old Buddhist room as a café space, they objected, saying, ‘You can’t show the Buddhist room to other people. However, I overcame the opposition and opened the café, and as a result, I got a good response from customers.
It’s not that we ignore our old customers. For example, we’ve designed new packaging, but we’ve kept the labels on the old bottles of soy sauce. I think it’s a good way to test the impression we have on the old users, to see what their fathers say about something new. Even if they are against it at first, their parents may change their minds based on the reaction of the customers. The process of getting the parents’ consent through the customers has become second nature to me.
To create an attractive industry that my childhood self would want to inherit.
Thanks to the reaction of the customers and Mr. Takahashi’s encouragement, his parents now even explain the Buddhist altar. Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery continues to work outside the traditional concept of a miso and soy sauce brewery, and has recently been hiring more and more young employees.
They offer tours of the brewery where you can experience traditional production and innovative approaches, and in recent years, they have discovered the unique Viamver® yeast (patent pending) that brews umami from test brewing, which was presented at the Japanese Society of Brewing Science. In recent years, we have discovered the proprietary Viamver® yeast (patent pending), which brews delicious flavor from test brewing, and presented it at the Japanese Society of Brewing Research. In addition, we have formed ASTRONOMICA®, a yeast research and development team, and have begun offering full courses using Viamver® yeast in all dishes. This fall, the company will present a range of products using this yeast at an exhibition in Amsterdam, and will move forward as a brewer working on branding with its own yeast strain.
In addition, we are also working to revitalize the local community. The ASTRONOMICA® development team includes not only chefs and researchers from Japan and abroad, but also architects and artists from outside the company, creating a variety of activities in the region. Most recently, we organized a team of outside professionals and interns from high school and college students to start a community garden project to revive abandoned farmland and open it up to local people. From this experimental initiative, we are now expanding its application to the entire local area, with the goal of reducing the number of abandoned fields to zero, and pursuing sustainability for the community.
Mr. Takahashi: “Just because we are a miso and soy sauce brewery, if we continue to do the same old things, we will one day decline. We want to achieve universality without getting caught up in preconceived notions, and make the industry so attractive that my childhood self would look at me now and think, ‘I want to inherit this, I want to do this. I want to show the world that by combining Japanese traditions from the past with personal creativity, we can offer new value to the world.
Mr. Takahashi is engaged in a series of activities that are unusual for a miso and soy sauce brewer. We look forward to seeing what he does in the future.
○About “relay” Open information on business succession. Nowadays, there are no “successors”. Nearly 50,000 small and medium-sized businesses close down every year. This is despite the fact that nearly half of them are profitable. “I wish I had known about this earlier,” many people say. If only we knew more about the problems and struggles of business owners. If only the information had been more open. If only the information were more open, we could “take over” the business more smoothly and naturally. We will continue to increase the number of entrepreneurs who relate their thoughts.
Viamver®︎ yeast breeds umami, and depending on how it is used, it can bring out the nuances of cheese. We have gone through a lot of trial and error to see if we can create a regular menu item that expresses this characteristic well.
Risotto is one of the specialties of German chef Jonas, and he used to make it according to the season upon request. Also, at a dinner once, Chef Sato suggested a risotto made with minor grains. Based on the experience and knowledge of chefs from Japan and abroad, we have repeatedly tested seasonal ingredients such as fruits and mushrooms, which led to the completion of the current menu.
“16 KINDS of FERMENTED MILLET RISOTTO” does not use meat, fish, or cheese, but brings out the umami of akitakomachi and 16 types of minor grains to achieve a taste that is second to none in so-called cheese risotto. Fermented shiitake mushrooms have a yeast fermentation that suppresses the aroma unique to shiitake mushrooms and concentrates the umami of guanylic acid and glutamic acid, while fermented kiwi transforms the sweetness of the fruit into the acidity of citric acid and lactic acid. Each of these fermented flavors is combined with Viamver®︎ yeast to create this risotto. We hope you will enjoy it.
【16 KINDS of FERMENTED MILLET RISOTTO】 Vegetable Bouillon and Viamver®︎ Yeast Fermented Millet Risotto is meat and fish milk free and has a thick flavor. Fermented mushrooms and fermented kiwi paste add umami and sourness. Various fermented vegetable salad is juicy with sea foie gras, tofu mousse, nuts and flakes.
【VARIOUS FERMENTED VEGETABLE SALAD with VIAMVER®︎ SEA FOIE GRAS & TOFU MOUSSE】 Chef Sato and his staff added fermented sea foie gras and tofu mousse and vegetable flakes to the succulent vegetarian-style salad that Jonas pursued with bitter roasted nuts and Viamver®︎ yogurt dressing, resulting in a variety of fermented vegetable salads.
The monthly magazine “PROJECT DESIGN” wrote an article about Yamamo’s efforts under the title of “Legacy-Based Social Change from a Brewery”. It was also featured in the gravure at the beginning of the magazine, and I believe it provided a comprehensive understanding of our efforts to date.
In addition to brushing up on the company’s philosophy, I would like to continue with these initiatives, such as organizational development to reorganize teams, product development based on innovative basic research, development of inbound and outbound services, and regional development to regenerate from the local level, in order to create the ideal environment and situation. I hope to continue these efforts to create an ideal environment and situation. I hope you will read this article. _mediainfo._magazine
Akita Prefecture Project Nippon Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company : Rebranding 150 Years of Tradition
Legacy-based Social Change from a Brewery
In Yuzawa City, Akita Prefecture, there is the Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company, which has been in business for over 150 years since its founding in the late Edo period. Although it is a long-established brewery, Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce is also making efforts to disseminate its culture not only domestically but also to the rest of the world by building a gallery and a cafe. We interviewed Mr. Yasushi Takahashi, the seventh generation head of the brewery, who aims to fuse tradition and innovation, about his thoughts and future business plans.
Yasushi Takahashi Managing Director, TAKAMO & Corp. / Seventh generation of Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company Rebranding the brewery and starting overseas expansion. He discovered Viamver® yeast in the 10th year of test brewing. Formed a team ASTRONOMICA® with researchers, chefs, architects, and artists, and applied it to menu development. With fermentation as “coexistence with the ecosystem,” the team reconstructs tradition with a creative aesthetic sense, incorporating the context of urban development and social change at home and abroad.
事業継承後は、「“Life is Voyage” 世界の食文化と和の調味料が融合し、進化していくこと」を新たな企業理念に掲げ、2012年に初の海外輸出に成功。また、「土地や建物に宿るレガシーを見出し、新たなコンテンツとして発信する」ことを目指し、100年以上前に４代目が作庭した庭に融雪装置を整備し、本来の形を維持しながらも持続可能にしたり、蔵の一部を改装してアートギャラリーとカフェを新設したりした。2017年からは、蔵や醸造工程を見学できるインバウンド向けのファクトリーツアーも開始している。
Carrying on a traditional industry while pursuing our own style
Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company was established in 1867 in Iwasaki, Yuzawa City in southeastern Akita Prefecture, and has been brewing miso and soy sauce for over 150 years. The area, where the tranquil Minase River flows, was an important center for waterborne trade and prospered as a castle town and post town. Seeing a need for miso and soy sauce, the founder, Takahashi Mosuke, began making miso using the beautiful water and richly flavored rice of Iwasaki. That was the beginning of Yamamo.
Today, Yamamo is led by the seventh generation, Mr. Yasushi Takahashi. He originally wanted to be an architect and “had no intention of taking over the family business,” says Yasushi, who majored in architecture at university. However, as he was about to graduate, he questioned his own values and decided to return to his hometown, saying, “If I don’t take over the family business, I will regret it.
After taking over the business, he set up a new corporate philosophy, “‘Life is Voyage’: the fusion and evolution of the world’s food culture and Japanese seasonings,” and succeeded in exporting his products overseas for the first time in 2012. The company also aims to “discover the legacy of the land and buildings and transmit it as new content. In 2017, the company began offering factory tours for inbound visitors to see the brewery and the brewing process.
In 2017, the company began offering factory tours for inbound visitors, where they can tour the brewery and the brewing process. “We aim to become the final destination by digging deep into the history and culture of our company and the region, and layering the contents in the brewery. Traditional industries connect the thoughts of our predecessors and lead to the present day. We believe that it is the role of traditional industries to convey messages that transcend time through industry, culture, and art, and to allow visitors and local residents to experience them with a sense of beauty.
One of his challenges is to research new yeasts and develop products using them. One of his challenges is to research new yeasts and develop products using them. While conducting test brewing at the brewery, Tai discovered a new yeast and presented it at the Japanese Society of Brewing Research.
“The yeast, which he named Viamver®, could be used to brew miso, soy sauce, and wine, and also had the unusual property of improving the meat quality of meat and fish.
“Typically, yeast used for brewing sake is killed by salt, so it cannot be used for cooking. However, Viaｍver was a rare yeast that could be used for both sake and cooking. The probability of discovering such a yeast would be as astronomical as discovering a new planet. For this reason, we combined the words for planet and amber and named it Viamver®, and the research and development team ASTRONOMICA®, meaning the ancient universe.
Development of a full course using the same yeast for the entire menu
After the discovery of the yeast, Mr. Yasushi worked with chefs from Japan and abroad who supervise the café, as well as researchers who had conducted joint research on the yeast, to develop a menu using the yeast, and created a full course using the yeast in all dishes. It is said that no other course in the world uses the same yeast for all the dishes.
“There are three stages of yeast fermentation: the growth stage, the steady state stage, and the convergence stage, and the best time to use yeast is different for each dish. The best time to use yeast fermentation liquid differs from dish to dish, so we repeatedly experiment with each dish to find out which time of the year is best. The taste and aroma of the yeast fungus changes when the wine is fresh and when it is aged, so the chef decides the taste of each dish accordingly and chooses the wine to go with it.
What he would like to do in the future is to make beer. The company has already started brewing wine using a new yeast through joint research with a research center in Akita Prefecture. With its traditional and innovative technology, the company has conducted workshops and presentations at international development organizations such as NION, an urban development team in Berlin, and SPACE10, a research and development team in Copenhagen. This fall, they will share their efforts with “MONO JAPAN” in Amsterdam. They would like to collaborate with overseas manufacturers in the creation of beer.
“We want to develop a beer that combines yeast from Japanese seasonings with the food culture of the continent, and market it both in Japan and overseas. We are living in an age where various experiments are being conducted to see how Japanese and Western cultures can be fused together. I believe that Japan’s traditional industries will be able to demonstrate their strength in such an era.
Fusing Japanese and Western Food Cultures for Legacy-Based Social Change
The brewing industry itself is about cultivating the region,” says Mr. Yasushi.
“By turning the grains grown in the region into miso, soy sauce, sake, etc., the value of agricultural products can be increased tenfold or even a hundredfold. This will enrich the producers and support the entire region. If we can brush up on this kind of industry and successfully incorporate it into the modern world, we can reweave our history and climate and redefine our regional identity.
Furthermore, it is the mission of those involved in traditional industries to act as the standard-bearers.
“I want to transform Yamamo into a place that pursues regional sustainability while maintaining the foundation of the miso and soy sauce industries. I call it ‘legacy-based social change.
At the same time as protecting and nurturing traditional industries, I want to discover what only I can do and create new innovations. In order to pursue both, Mr. Tai feels that “the best way is to explore the roots of your own birth and upbringing.
“I think this approach can be applied not only to those who inherit a business, but actually to everyone.”
The development team, ASTRONOMICA®, is currently expanding its activities to include architects and artists from outside the company. They are collaborating on a project basis to create a variety of activities in the community.
For example, this summer they launched a community garden project to revive an abandoned field owned by Yamamo and open it to the local community. This will be used as a test case, and its application will be expanded to the entire Iwasaki region, with the goal of reducing the amount of abandoned land to zero in pursuit of regional sustainability.
“We are living in an age of infectious diseases, and people all over the world are searching for the next way of life and environment. We believe that the local brewing industry, which once cultivated the region, can take on a new role by connecting with the world’s culture and industry, and advocate a way of being that is appropriate for the next generation.
We believe that the local brewing industry, which once cultivated the region, can play a new role in connecting with global culture and industry, and advocate a way of being that is appropriate for the next generation. The role of the local in a changing world may be to create opportunities to think about structural changes in society as a whole, while respecting the local way of being.
○About “PROJECT DESIGN” Business Concept Monthly is a business magazine based on the concept of fostering the “conceptual ability” to develop new markets and providing information that leads to start-ups, new businesses, and regional revitalization.
In urban and community development, how we address public space is key to our projects, and the Brooklyn urban development team we visited on our 2016 trip to Central and North America created the impetus for this by strategically using underutilized land for public use. In addition, Takahashi, the seventh generation, participated in a social innovation program for food and agriculture in Seattle in 2015, and observed the fieldwork of solving social issues through community gardens there. Based on this knowledge, we have come to think that we can play a part in the development of the region by turning the abandoned farmland owned by Yamamo into a project and using it as a “COMMUNITY GARDEN” for public use.
The concept of public use of land has been around for several years, but we have not had the opportunity to implement it due to manpower issues, relationships with local people, and compatibility with the local environment. With the increasing number of high school and college students coming and going over the past few years, and the generational change in employees, we finally decided to start this summer. We will organize him and her, and through the utilization of abandoned farmland, induce diverse exchanges such as intergenerational communication, and through the cooperation of diverse attributes, revitalize the region and realize individual skill improvement and career development.
With the cooperation of Yuzawa City, the “YAMAMO COMMUNITY GARDEN PROJECT” will be published in the “Kashimakanpo”, the local public relations magazine for the Iwasaki area, and will be shared widely with the local community. Our goal is that this project, which includes education and intergenerational exchange based on citizen activities, will lead to the regeneration of the region.
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[ Community Garden Case Study ]
1.Preservation of indigenous species Gardens and fields created to protect not only improved varieties but also “native species” that have been optimized and rooted in the climate. 2.Ecosystem maintenance A community garden created to maintain the ecosystem of a nearby lake. 3.Racial issues Community gardens created to protect neighborhoods for people of color. 4.Poverty problem A community garden to solve the problem of poverty, where anyone can take home fruits and vegetables from the garden.
Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company is launching a community garden project in cooperation with university and high school students in the prefecture. Community gardens are not planned, established, and operated by the government, but by local residents as a voluntary activity. The abandoned farmland owned by Yamamo will be used as a test case, and its application will be expanded to the entire Iwasaki area, with the goal of reducing the number of abandoned farmlands to zero, in pursuit of regional sustainability. We will welcome young interns from universities and high school students to promote diverse communication. In the future, we will create lawns and hills in the community garden, making it a playground for local children and a gathering place for the child-rearing generation. We will also set up a field where local residents can casually drop by and hold events during harvest time and in the community garden, creating a place for multigenerational communication in the entire community. Through this project, we aim to revitalize the community. Through this project, we hope to increase the number of human resources who will go on to revitalize the community and solve local issues. _All interns at Yamamo Miso and Soy Sauce Brewing Company
Yamamo Intern, Yuzawa Shohoku High School 3rd year student, Konoka Sasaki After I got involved with Yamamo, I wanted to be able to speak my mind independently. I want to not only listen to what others have to say, but also to add to what they have to say in order to advance the project. I’m really excited to be involved in a big project. First, we had to sort out the trash in the abandoned farmland to start the project. It was a very daunting task, but I really wanted to turn it into a field with my own hands. I am also very much looking forward to this project as I have not had many opportunities to participate in events and projects that communicate with the local community. I would be happy if more people would be interested in this project.
Yamamo Internship, Akita International University4th year student, Karin Gorai When I saw the abandoned farmland covered in weeds, I doubted whether it would really be possible to turn it into a farm. The sheer amount of weeds made me despair many times, but I think the reason why I was able to continue working on this project without giving up was because I had seen Yamamo’s ever-changing appearance from my side. Witnessing the moment when something that I thought I couldn’t change anyway was transforming, I somehow changed my mind that I should be able to turn this land full of grass and garbage into a field. Through this project, I feel that running a community garden can make a difference in the lives of the town and the people who live there. In the events I plan to organize in the future, I would like to share this realization with the local people.
