Message

“What if the world should disappear tomorrow?”
I asked myself when I was 28 years old working in the advertisement section of a film company and spending days in a gorgeous and stimulative world. My answer was that “I wished to sit and drink my home sake in the small, dark and cool Kura, sake warehouse of my home.” My action was quick after I found what I should do on the very last day of the world. At 29 years old, I returned my home brewery accompanied by a man who worked in a publishing company.

I started exporting sake overseas, which I wanted to do since I had taken over the brewery. I wanted to export our sake directly to overseas local importers. Thanks to several lucky chances, I made “MANOTSURU” across the ocean in 2003. Our export business seemed favorably expand to Korea, Taiwan and to Singapore. But none of them brought any success. The bubble economy has already collapsed. The sake industry was also on the decline. So was the travel industry in Sado. The adverse wind blowing against a small unknown brewery was severer than I had expected.

However, the difficulties led me to notice three things. They are that “we should convey our sake’s originality not its specification”, “we should grow the market not compete against others to get a slice of pie” and “we should be more anxious about the decreasing local population as well as about the future of our sake industry.” I set my mind that I would change the island I hated in my childhood into an island full of treasures.

A fateful encounter took place in 2008. We heard that Nishimikawa Elementary School, which was renounced for the most beautiful view of sunset in Japan, would be closed in 2010. I decided that OBATA SHUZO should take the charge of it and revive it as a brewery. Thereafter, “Gakko Gura”, a school brewery was born in 2014.

Gakko Gura has four pillars. The first pillar is “Sake Production”. As sake is produced in winter at the main OBATA brewery, at Gakko Gura sake is produced in summer and offered for sale with a brand name, “GAKKO GURA”. Our sales message is “100% made in Sado”. The second is “Learning”. We accept anyone who wants to experience producing sake on the condition that they commute a whole week. The third is “Coexistence”. As a sake maker we want to convey through our sake the importance of coexistence with the environment of Sado where Toki, Japanese crested ibis fly over. We installed solar panels to get energy for sake production from the sunshine in Sado. The forth is “Exchange”. We have started “a Special Class of Gakko Gura”, which is offered only once a year.

Our overseas business has changed afterward. Thanks to the first partner importer, which our business seemed not to work well with, we got a chance to meet another partner and it is going well now. We currently export our sake to 15 countries, to half of which we export directly. They not only sell our sake but come over to Sado to visit the home of the sake they sell. Sado produces sake and the sake introduces Sado to the world. Sado has been an inland of treasures since a long time ago. I did realize it only when I changed myself.

When we notice, a small challenge of a small brewery has brought about numerous links among many other industries and businesses in the world beyond the island and beyond the sake industry.

Why does a sake brewery get involved in such things?
It is because of our mind of the old brewery with a long history.
If other companies aim to develop their business in size, we will aim to do ours in maturity.