With the recent passing of the Japanese Golden Week holiday, I wanted to send you all a warm welcome to the new era – REIWA. This was officially on 1st May, where we launched the new era for Japan and one for Daimon Brewery as well! With our namesake the RIKYUBAI flower (pictured below) in full bloom and our garden showing the many signs of Spring we welcome these next few days to appreciate our continued expansion of the Daimon Brand.
Sales continue to grow with Year on Year growth at +200%, Half on Half growth at + 180% and Month on Month growth consistently trending above 200%. This news is further accented by a recent report from the tax authority stating that in Osaka only two breweries are up year on year – Daimon Brewery at triple digits plus another who’s growth was a marginal 3%. In addition, our International sales remain on target with growing opportunities as we have concluded deals in the USA, Sweden, Denmark, France, soon to be Italy and regionally with the addition of Taiwan. The US deal will represent three of our products – inclusive of a specially designed “Nigori” for the Nigori focused American market. All of our US products are to be launched this summer and presented by our importer at the biggest American Sake Event of the year in San Francisco. And finally, for our friends in Hong Kong, we continue to build out our OEM and private label product opportunities with the latest addition of Hong Kong based Four Fox Sake.
To support our sales, we continue to push our marketing via social media (we hope you are all viewing our regular updates), print and soon to be video. In print, the leading Sake industry publication, Sake Today, will feature Daimon Brewery as the main story in their next addition. In video, we are 6 months into our documentary filming having captured the whole production season. In partnership, we are in negotiation with National Geographic to be the “Japanese Food and Beverage” portal of their soon to be launched interactive site, and finally stay tuned for future updates that will include a new initiatives for You Tube.
On site we just finished our 4th full Daimon Festival with great success. Our largest crowd ever with two revolving jazz bands, street venders and our first ever partnership with a bakery that produced all its products using our Sake lees and koji rice – a great boost to the local community. In addition, our weekly Friday Sake Night continues to draw crowds of upwards of 60 people and Mukune continues to fill the house on the weekends.
The next step will come next month as the Board concludes our six-month strategic review to launch us into phase two of the project. As we continue to see many opportunities through the marketplace we are now determining how best to include these strategies, increase our international presence and build out our brand. We will of course update you on that discussion once concluded and look to you for your continued support. In the meantime, we hope that this new Era will bring you all back to the Brewery for a visit in the not so distant future.
Wishing you all the best for REIWA!
Marcus Consolini
CEO
Daimon Brewery