We have a Japanese sake called MoonbloomSake that we brew especially for the United States.
This brand recently won gold and silver medals at the Los Angeles International Wine Competition. (This is a liquor competition held in Los Angeles. Although it is written as wine, in recent years it has expanded to include sake.)
This time I will write a story about this sake.
When I entered the brewery and started making sake, my first dream was to export the sake I made overseas.
I like English, I participated in language training twice when I was a university student, and I traveled overseas a lot.
The company I worked for had overseas business trips in addition to domestic work, and the industry was related to overseas, including materials.
I loved going to countries with different cultures, enjoying the local foods, and communicating with the locals.
I learned a lot from different ways of thinking, and while talking to various people, I came to understand myself better.
Now that I've returned to my family's brewery, I'm doing my best to make and sell sake, but at the time I didn't think about it that seriously.
I don't know anything about management, and I've never been in sales, so I can't be an immediate work force.
But I don't want parents to think that my joining the company only increased the number of people.
I couldn't afford to pay high tuition fees to go to university and not be able to make use of my knowledge, so I wondered what I could do.
As a result of thinking about various things, I decided to set a goal of "selling overseas the sake I made myself" because I liked making things and I could speak English a little.
When I started making sake myself, I was interviewed several times by the media because I was young at 29, I was a woman, which was rare in the sake industry, and I was entering from a different industry.
One of them was an interview with JAL's newsletter, and I was asked to write an article summarizing my background and why I started brewing sake.
A woman who saw it took an interest in me and contacted me.
She asked if she would sell sake in America.
She came all the way to see me, and after that we met and talked many times.
We were in similar circumstances and had the same goals, so we decided to launch a new brand together.
Start from 0 customers!
We thought of a brand name and asked a local person to design it.
The name Moonbloom was named from the image of "moon" and "flower" to create an atmosphere similar to Tsukiyoshino. I got a very nice name that was easy to pronounce in English.
Despite not being in the liquor industry, she had great connections and was very active, so we were able to start exporting about three years after the conception.
However, the moment it started, it was a tough start, with the market closing due to the corona crisis and shipping costs rising.
Meanwhile, we are currently selling mainly in the United States, and our main markets are California and Nevada.
And in 2021, Moonbloom won awards at three competitions.
★International Wine and Spirits Competition
★ San Francisco International Wine Competition
★Los Angeles International Wine Competition
At this time, not only the evaluation of taste but also the evaluation of design is a result of gold.
I would like to further expand the sales channel with this evaluation as a tailwind.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that marketing is everything in order to sell things in America.
I was able to learn new things by meeting a good partner, and I'm really glad that I was able to fulfill my dream.
My next goal is to hold a local sake event, so this time I would like to do my best to achieve that goal.
Moonbloom Sake
Introductory article: