Exclusive and Nostalgic Flavors

Eitaro established its main shop in Nihonbashi back in 1857 and has remained in the same area ever since the Edo period. Can you tell us more about the importance of Nihonbashi to your company and brand?

Today, we are sitting close to the Imperial Palace, and alongside that palace is a castle. That castle used to be owned by the Tokugawa family. Japan as a country was dominated by the Tokugawa family for more than 250 years. Near the castle were all the samurai from all over the country. These locations are the prime spots in Tokyo because they are so close to the Imperial Palace. This area was known for merchants who were trading with all the rich samurai and royal family members. This is how the area of Nihonbashi has evolved. Lots of the major companies located in Nihonbashi are based on that historical background. Our company is different, and our family used to pull carts for a living, particularly people around the fish market.

Kinsuba is one of our flagship products. As you might know, kin means gold, and tsuba is actually the round guard that you will find on samurai swords. These round-shaped snacks filled with red beans were first made in Tokyo, or, to use the correct term, Edo. This is something we’ve been making since the foundation of our company, and the recipe has not changed since. This is something we will continue to do and pass forward to future generations. Two hundred years ago, people would walk around Nihonbashi and enjoy Eitaro Kintsuba, and to this day, you can enjoy the same taste, flavors, smells, and even methods of production. This nostalgic taste is something magnificent and something we are really proud of.

Why do you think the recipe has been so successful?

Japanese people like anko, or red bean paste, as it is known in English. These are the most anko-oriented sweets. Let’s take mochi, daifuku, and kintsuba. Mochi and daifuku are around 50% dough and 50% anko, but our products are 1% dough and 99% anko. People just love the flavor of azuki anko, which is made up of smaller red beans. Customers used to request Mr. Eitaro to make the dough thinner as much as he could. Customers felt that if the dough was too thick, it would become imagawayaki, a Japanese-style sweet roll because it would be too flour-based. Imagawayaki is mostly dough with a small amount of filling. Kinsuba is the reverse; lots of anko, a little bit of dough, and that is what people really want.

Times are changing now, however, and people don’t consider something sweet to be good anymore, so maybe anko is too much for the younger generation. In this era, there are people who don’t like the taste of anko, which is quite sad. Still, where we are today, there are still lots of people that love anko. To create good flavor, you need good beans. Hokkaido is the main source of this. Major companies are sourcing from outside of Hokkaido, which results in red beans with less flavor. I can’t tell you about the science behind it, but anko made from Hokkaido azuki has a deep, rich flavor.

When people imagine kintsuba, they think of a square-shaped snack, and often, other products use agar, making the dough tough. Our products are soft, not too sweet, and almost like a cake. The daily fresh products we make are very different from the souvenir types you might buy in other stores. Of course, kintsuba is just one of our products, and we also make other categories of confectionery. What we used to sell back in the day in the back of a cart were fresh items that people really loved.

After forming the balls by hand, black sesame seeds are applied to the top.

The round shape is completed using a mold specially designed for this confectionery.

Your company was founded back in 1818. From selling kintsuba to introducing iconic sweets, you have preserved the authentic flavors of Edo for over two centuries. When celebrating your 200th anniversary in 2018, you remained a symbol of tradition and innovation in Japanese confectionery. Can you tell us how your business has evolved over more than 200 years of history and how the rich heritage you have continues to shape and influence who you are today?

Things started with a small cart, and then it became a small shop. We didn’t work on a chain operation system; it was just one store that was really popular. The next big change happened when my grandfather gathered all the people from Japanese tea and confectionery brands under the same location in Shibuya. This became the sort of base for department stores, where they would have departments in the basement for various Japanese snacks, candies, and other confectionery or beverage products. My grandfather’s generation pushed to join together so that customers didn’t have to go to various different shops to complete their shopping lists.

Every department store in Japan has a food floor. This is simply a duplicate of what my grandfather was aiming to do. This strategy led to our company becoming larger, but then, around 30-40 years ago, recession hit Japan hard. Japan used to have a lot more culture around gift-giving, and right now, when we are having this interview, we are in Winter, and people are getting ready to send Christmas and New Year presents. My father’s generation would send 20-30 gifts to various people during Winter. This is all to show appreciation throughout the year. Realistically, these are touchpoints of communication, and even if you don’t communicate throughout the year, they are reminders that you are thinking of someone. During the recession, however, people started thinking that these gifts were meaningless. The thought was that if you stopped sending gifts, others would stop, and everything would be equal. Gifts would be expensive, and sending too many can become a burden on someone’s finances. This trend really changed our company, and it forced us to go into supermarkets and convenience stores to attract customers. With the emergence of stores like 7-Eleven and Lawson, we saw opportunities. We used to sell using a cart, then moved to department stores, and the next generation of touchpoints with consumers were these convenience store chains. We tried to channel the spirit of Tokyo by trying something new.

My generation is trying to separate our brands even further. When I joined the company, there was only one brand, but now we have five. This is because we need to match the style and needs of young people. By young people, I’m not talking about teenagers; I’m talking about young people in their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s since they have disposable income, are not burdened by families, and thus have many financial commitments. Actually, 90% of our customers are female. These women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s have this image of traditional Japan and can really relate to tradition. This is why we’ve created more brands: to welcome more new people into the experiences we offer, traditional sweets and confectionery but with a modern twist.}

Which brands or products have you introduced to cater to this new audience you are targeting?

I would say that our Ameya Eitaro brand  are a core product for us in this regard. It started in the Isetan Shinjuku department store, where shoppers were very wealthy. Candy is candy, but with this brand in this shop, we could bring up the price of one of the most expensive candies in Japan. We also have a product called Sweet Lip, which is a lip gloss product. We like to think that this is changing the perspective of candy into something else. It is almost like a communication tool. Creativity is important, and we have a very creative team at our company. The key is not to limit what they do but to allow them to experiment and follow their ideas to fruition. Traditional Japanese companies can be quite stifling and put too many restrictions, killing creativity. I always tell our employees to remember that our company started with pulling a cart around, so we can really do anything. The one restriction I place is not changing the recipe for the kintsuba, but other than that, we are willing to try anything.

Our umeboshi-ame candy, called Eitaro-ame, is the oldest hard candy in Japan and originally came from the Portuguese. The Azores Islands are a group of islands between New York and Lisbon, sitting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Those islands used to be the main source of sugar for Europe, and still, to this day, provide a lot of sugar to European countries. Terceira Island, in particular, is the birthplace of candy. Those Christians from the island came to Japan in the 1600s and brought candy with them. The priests would say that if the Japanese people would listen to the word of God, they would be rewarded, and these rewards included candy. This old method of candy-making is still employed to this day in Portugal.

Eitaro candies are made by skilled craftsmen using several kinds of high-quality ingredients.

Eitaro candies are made by skilled craftsmen using several kinds of high-quality ingredients.

Your company has clearly evolved to meet the different needs of the market. Nowadays, however, Japan is facing a tough situation with the shrinking and aging demographic. There is a long list of issues that come as a result of this, including more pressure on women to follow professional careers versus bringing up children, labor shortages, and a shrinking domestic market to sell products to. What strategies is your company employing to overcome some of the challenges associated with this demographic shift?

One core component of our company is the fact that we don’t rely on tourists. It is my opinion that it is dangerous to depend on tourists. While we welcome them and 2024 saw record numbers of inbound tourists, Nihonbashi isn’t a typical destination for tourists. First-time visitors go to Asakusa or Ginza. During COVID-19 in particular, I felt that fancy department stores felt the impact of relying too heavily on foreign tourists. When those tourists disappeared, those department stores started disappearing, too. Around 90% of our customers are Japanese, and we don’t try to advertise too much to tourists. If it happens naturally, we are happy, but we aren’t actively pursuing those sales. Fortunately, candy is now an international product, and mochi is becoming recognized globally.

My brother recently went to Boston and made Dorayaki in front of people, and he was called the Wagashi Legend by onlookers, with Wagashi being the Japanese word for confectionery. It was on TikTok, and people lined up. I heard that he sold more than 5,000 Dorayakis at USD 5 apiece. Here in Japan, it is sold for about USD 1.5, so people in the US are willing to pay three times the price. It shocked me since I lived in the US in the 90s, and back then, nobody was paying attention to Japanese confectionery. In fact, people there were disgusted at the idea of sweet beans as a paste. Additionally, it is black, and I’ve heard that Western people pay a lot of attention to the colors of food, with black not being the most appealing color for food. This is why nori seaweed was hard to sell overseas at the beginning. My brother said that times have changed now, and that people don’t stereotype food anymore. Additionally, because of the popularity of anime and manga, people all know about Dorayaki.

With the prevalence of the sort of fake Japanese restaurants being run abroad by other asian ethnicity group, we have decided to stick to our guns. We believe that if we make products that appeal to Japanese people, inevitably, they will also appeal overseas. In terms of locations, we believe we can make a go at, the future seems to be pointing to the US and Taiwan for our business.

In terms of the approach, we will not be opening our own shops. It is true that this is one way of entering, but the costs associated are rather high. You must pay rent and hire people to staff the store. The benefit of candy is its lifespan, which essentially lasts a lifetime. Right now, customers can purchase Eitaro-ame Candies on Amazon US as well as through Muji US. The next step might be to work with a company like Uniqlo. Basically, you can find authentic Japanese sweets in the US. I know I might sound a little overconfident, but I believe we offer the best quality in the world. This is because we don’t use any chemical flavorings or colorings, and our ancestors made candies using natural ingredients. The recipe hasn’t changed in all that time, and while other companies might put stuff into their candies to reduce costs, we aren’t pursuing reduced costs. We are simply looking to offer the best products.

Since the number of Japanese people is decreasing, the price has to increase higher and higher to maintain the same sales levels. We don’t want to be known as making the same quality as other companies. We want to be known as the best and, therefore, stand out.

I personally visit all the farmers to gather the fruits. We take the fruits and turn them into puree, which is then turned into powder, and then finally candy. Nobody else follows this model because it costs a lot. For example, strawberry candies require a whole single strawberry for just one candy. It might cost a lot to produce, but this is our method for distinguishing ourselves from the competition. Candy is cheap all over the world, but I’m of the opinion that there should be a market for people with money who want to spend a bit more on quality candy. Interestingly, I heard that our thinly crusted unique candy called Hanehitoe is even popular among Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) streamers who place a microphone very close to their face and will eat interesting-sounding foods. As the candy is crunchy, it makes for a unique sound with such powerful microphones.

You mentioned earlier the idea of partnering with a company like Uniqlo for distribution in the United States. Are there any partnerships that you would view as valuable for your company to help you expand your products in other markets?

Yes, you are right that we are looking for a partner. There are two or three companies that are interested in distributing in the United States. Of course, distribution in the United States is something we need help to do. My brother is being dispatched to the US in 2025 for this reason. Right now, with the JPY being as weak as it is, Japan has become a cheap place to produce candies, so the idea is to produce candies in Japan and bring them to the US. Think back to what I mentioned earlier about my brother selling USD 5 Dorayakis. That simply would not be possible in Japan. I can’t explain why, so perhaps doing business in foreign countries might be easier. In Japan, there is too much competition, and it has become a red ocean. On the other hand, in the US, real Japanese food is hard to find. We feel it would be better to move into that market.

In terms of where we would base ourselves, I am in discussions. My brother wants to go to the East Coast, so that would be markets like New York or Boston. Physically, however, the West Coast is closer to Japan, so we need to consider this carefully before making our decision.

Imagine that we come back in three years and have this interview all over again. What goals or dreams do you hope to achieve by the time we come back for that new interview?

I don’t want to distinguish between international people and domestic people; quite simply, I just want people all over the world to know that there are different types of high-quality candy, the types of which they may have never experienced before. My ancestors have been doing this for a long time, and we don’t cheat. We just stick to quality ingredients to make quality products. Wagashi comes from farms, beans, and all-natural ingredients. People should know that if they want quality candy, it is here at Eitaro, and we are eager to share that with them directly from Nihonbashi.

For more information, please visit their website at: https://www.eitaro.com/en/