If
you are cooking with a high quality, traditional Japanese food
that was made in Japan or drink organic green tea that was grown
in Japan, there is about an 80% chance it came from Mitoku Company,
Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan. This company has profoundly influenced
the eating habits of food conscious Americans and has been very
influential in setting the manufacturing standards for Japanese
natural and macrobiotic foods made in Japan and other parts of
the world. However, the statement "made in Japan" has
not always been held in such high esteem. In fact, I am old enough
to remember when "made in Japan" was a joke.
After
the devastation of World War II, Japan reindustrialized with an
eye toward export markets in the United States and Europe. However,
Japan’s early attempts at exporting consumer goods were
tacky and not very good quality. About 35 years ago all that changed.
Those remarkable transistor radios you could hold in the palm
of your hand appeared first, then tiny tape recorders and "tummy
TVs". We began trading in our gas guzzlers for fuel efficient
Hondas, and before long, Japanese steakhouse chefs were tossing
shrimp into the air with spatulas and catching them in plates
behind their backs.
Ironically,
about the time Americans and Europeans were warming up to the
dazzling array of new high tech consumer goods from Japan, George
Ohsawa was roaming the globe preaching his philosophy of yin and
yang, an eclectic blend of ancient Shinto, Taoist and Buddhist
principles and Oriental medicine, which he called "macrobiotics".
In Boston, two of Ohsawa’s students, Michio and Tomoko (Aveline)
Kushi, were busy teaching macrobiotics to a growing number of
students who were drawn to the life changing possibilities of
this new way of living.
The
Kushi’s timing could not have been better. The philosophy
of yin and yang attracted people from many walks of life, including
hippies, intellectuals, old Bohemians, and people disillusioned
with America’s materialistic ways. After lecturing for several
years, in 1967, the Kushis founded Erewhon, a small Boston natural
foods store supplying macrobiotic students with staples such as
grains, beans and other basic foods that are part of the dietary
recommendations of the macrobiotic way of life. However, the Kushis
soon realized that the quality of food needed was not available
in the United States. When Michio Kushi discussed his difficulties
with an old university friend, his friend remembered a former
schoolmate who was now in the import and export business. He thought
his business friend in Tokyo, Japan, might be able to help. That
man was Akiyoshi Kazama, the founder of Mitoku.
Kazama’s
business experience in both the United States and Japan made him
a prime candidate for the type of partnership Kushi was looking
for. A graduate of Waseda University, in Tokyo, Kazama was selected
by Yamanashi perfecture, in 1956, to study business in the United
States. After arriving in the Chicago area he was placed with
a firm, and to his astonishment, learned that one of his coworkers
was none other than Iva Togun, "Tokyo Rose", the infamous
voice of Radio Tokyo who taunted allied forces in the Pacific
during World War II. His relationship with Iva was short-lived,
however, because he was immediately drafted into the American
Army and earned the dubious distinction of being the first Japanese
national to serve in the United States military after World War
II. In the service, Kazama was entrusted with the responsibility
for large sums of money.
The
association between 39-year-old Kazama and the Kushis was to be
a perfect match, for Kazama was both a sharp businessman and a
great lover of good food. Although he had never encountered macrobiotics
before, as a connoisseur he had made his own discoveries about
the best quality foods. Invariably his personal favorites were
traditionally made from the finest ingredients and free of high
tech processing and chemical additives. Above all he admired those
foods that had what he called "spirit". But Japan, like
other industrialized countries, had turned away from their traditional
dietary roots in favor of mass-produced, highly processed foods
with little of the integrity, flavor, or health promoting qualities
of the original product. For example, just about all of Japan’s
important fermented foods, such as shoyu, tamari, miso, rice vinegar
and mirin were being made by hurried, high temperature aging and
contained highly processed ingredients. Mr. Kazama knew that finding
producers willing to meet Kushi’s macrobiotic standards
would not be easy, but he was inspired by the idea of introducing
Americans to the ancient culinary treasures of Japan
In
the late sixties and early seventies, Mr. Kazama began crisscrossing
the Japanese archipelago in an all out effort to supply Erewhon
with macrobiotic quality foods. Many early possibilities led to
dead ends and frustration; however, there were a few notable exceptions,
such as Johsen shoyu, which was naturally aged in twelve-foot-tall
cedar tanks for eighteen months and made from whole soybeans and
wheat, and dark, rich Hatcho miso, which has been made by the
same recipe and method for over eight hundred years! Soon Kazama
was joined by Westerners such Blake Rankin, an American, Christopher
Dawson, a New Zealander, and Robbie Swinnerton, an Englishman,
who helped in the search and export of traditional Japanese foods.
By the end of the 1970s, Kazama and the Mitoku band of wandering
food detectives had uncovered a virtual cornucopia of rare, flavorful,
and medicinal foods, such as long-aged, whole soybean, wheat free
tamari; brown rice vinegar that is aged for twelve months in one
hundred-year-old earthen jars that are buried in the earth to
help regulate the temperature of the delicate fermentation process;
kanten and tofu that are freeze-dried in the snow just as it was
done before the introduction of electricity; sweet amber mirin
made from aging distilled sake and amazake; and natural grain
malts with a gentle sweetness that does not overwhelm the taste
buds like modern syrups made from enzymes.
Meanwhile,
in the United States macrobiotics was booming. Erewhon had grown
from a small store to one of the country’s largest natural
food distributors, delivering Mitoku products down the East Coast
to large stores in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington,
D.C. Another Erewhon store had opened in Los Angeles and was importing
Mitoku products. In the south, Tree of Life was branching out
from its home in St. Augustine, Florida, and Westbrae was importing
Mitoku products into California and distributing them in the western
states. Although more slowly, macrobiotics was spreading on the
other side of the Atlantic, with budding communities in the United
Kingdom, France, and Belgium. Companies such as Lima in Belgium
and Sun Wheel in England were a few of the early importers of
Mitoku products in that part of the world.
With
macrobiotics catching on around the world, Mitoku’s future
looked secure, however, everything changes to its opposite, particularly
in the world of business and finance. Erewhon was growing so fast
that it was soon stretched to the limits of its cash flow and
financing capacity and, in 1979, began experiencing financial
difficulties. As these troubles worsened, many companies stopped
shipping to the Boston firm. Because of a deep personal commitment
to the Kushis, Kazama continued to fill orders. When Erewhon finally
collapsed in the fall of 1981, Mitoku was its largest creditor
and took a three hundred thousand dollar loss.
Erewhon’s
demise nearly destroyed Mitoku, however, with the help of the
foreign and Japanese staff, Kazama nurtured the company back to
health. Twenty-two years later, Mitoku is the world’s largest
exporter of traditional Japanese foods. With more than thirty
customers in twenty-two countries, Mitoku exports over five hundred
products to firms in North America, South America, Central America,
Asia, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
Sales have grown from Erewhon’s first order of three thousand
dollars in 1968 to over twelve million dollars in 2002. Mitoku
is also one of Japan’s largest importers and distributors
of organic and natural foods from the United States, Canada, and
Europe, selling these products along with traditional Japanese
products to over ten thousand customers in Japan.
Mitoku’s
success has transformed the lives of not only Kazama and his family,
but, like a pebble dropped into a still pond, Mitoku’s influence
has had a ripple effect on people and businesses around the world.
In Japan small family shops were able to revive ancient food traditions
and sell their products at home and abroad. Names such as Johsen,
Uchida, Mikawa, Onozaki, Ryujin, and others have become known
in natural food stores from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. Moreover,
Mitoku producers were introduced to using organic ingredients
as Mitoku began importing organic grains and beans for domestic
production. (There are very few Japanese organic growers.) As
macrobiotics spread, Mitoku products led the way as Kazama rushed
to keep up with the ever-increasing needs of the rapidly expanding
market. Although demand often surpassed production, Mitoku never
wavered from the standards outlined by the Kushis in 1968. Products
must be made by traditional methods and recipes, aged at natural
temperatures in traditional vessels, and made with organic ingredients,
if at all possible.
Even
after the collapse of Erewhon the personal bond between the Kushis
and Mr. Kazama continued to grow as their joint effort to introduce
the world to macrobiotic foods moved forward with increasing momentum.
Moreover, many of the westerners who came to work for Mitoku in
the early years went on to start companies of their own. Christopher
Dawson owns Clearspring, Mitoku’s largest importer and Europe’s
foremost distributor of traditional Japanese foods. Blake Rankin
went on to start Granum, a Seattle-based Mitoku importer. Bruce
Macdonald, who helped open the Erewhon store in Los Angeles, is
now the owner, along with daughter Crystal, of Natural Import
Company, this country’s main distributor of Mitoku brand
products.
My
wife Jan and I were also profoundly influenced by Kazama and Mitoku.
In 1979 we were sent to Japan as part of a joint venture between
Oak Feed, a Mitoku importer located in Miami, and Erewhon to make
miso in the United States. We met Mr. Kazama in October of that
year and he placed us at the Onozaki shop, which is located north
of Tokyo. This was the greatest adventure of our lives, and we
will be forever grateful to Kazama and Mitoku for the opportunity.
We returned to the United States to build Erewhon Miso Company,
but when Erewhon went into Chapter 11, the miso project was taken
over by Great Eastern Sun, yet another Mitoku importer in Asheville,
North Carolina.
The
history of Mitoku is the story of one man’s uncompromising
dedication to quality and tradition. When I recently asked Mr.
Kazama about the importance of his company in the world natural
food movement, he did not talk about how his company raised the
standards of natural foods around the world, but rather how Mitoku
helped create an opportunity for numerous small Japanese family
shops to rediscover their culinary roots and pass this heritage
on to future generations. However, from the wider perspective,
Michio Kushi has said, "The history of Mitoku Company, Ltd.
is a symbol of the history of the macrobiotic movement throughout
the world."
Although,
at 72, Mr. Kazama looks at the past with gratitude and marvels
at the mystery of it all, the future is certainly not clear. As
the dollar began to weaken in the eighties, the price of Mitoku
products became much more expensive. Soon Japanese foods were
being made in other parts of the world at a cheaper price. However,
some of these foods are either made by faster, less expensive
methods or use lower quality ingredients. Mr. Kazama’s goal
is to let consumers around the world know there is a difference.
When it comes to food, Mitoku has created a whole new meaning
for "made in Japan".
