6th Generation Brewer Sato Jumpei's Resume
Establishing the "TATENOKAWA" Brand: Part 3 ("TATENOKAWA" Newspaper 12/03/2013）
Following on from last month , I would like to tell you in a little more detail about the time that the new "TATENOKAWA" brand was established.
In the first year of the new "TATENOKAWA" brand, I think we must have produced a total of 250 koku using as many as 16 tanks (small and big tanks combined). At the time, we must have had one of the smallest production yields out of all the breweries in Yamagata Prefecture.
We were in a situation where all the sake that we produced was special-designation-sake but our only distributors were local suppliers, which meant that we were having a hard time trying to sell Junmai and Junmai Ginjo. We sold Honjozo on a small scale locally but the Shonai region was a mainly Futsushu (table-sake) market where a set of two 1.8L size bottles was retailing no higher than 3000yen, a market that in our present situation without table-sake we would be unable to break into.
Well then, what on earth were we to do?
I was lead to the feeling that if the local market was so dead set on Futsushu (table-sake), then we should actually be turning our attention to the capital Tokyo where there were lots of customers who appreciated Junmai and Junmai Ginjo sake, who didn’t mind if the price was high compared to Futushu as long as it was good. There were lots of fresh young breweries in Yamagata Prefecture and a yearning to follow the success of the breweries that had already made it in Tokyo.
Thinking that we could somehow make "TATENOKAWA" a brand name to remember in the capital and from there, increase its identity among the local people, we began shipping outside the prefecture. We gradually began to shift from wholesale distribution towards direct supply to the sake shops because I felt that we were in an era where rather than relying on suppliers to sell your sake for you, you had to go out and actively promote sales it you wanted to survive. I remember pushing out the new brand feeling taxed about the distribution and production side of things.
6th Generation Brewer Sato Jumpei
