Sustainably-sourced Japanese forests excite the palate at Bangkok Design Week 2024

Japanese forests are an underutilized resource

Japan is a heavily forested nation, with 70% of its landmass covered by trees. Yet Japan is also a huge importer of timber products, while most of its own forests are left untouched. There’s an economic reason for this. Most Japanese forests are in mountainous terrain, making it difficult and expensive to harvest wood compared to large commercial plantations overseas. How can Japan make better use of its forestry resources, and in turn support the livelihoods of rural communities? One crQlr Award-winning company has a novel solution: foraging the Japanese forest as a source of gourmet food ingredients.

Nihon Kusaki Lab produces a variety of products that utilize Japanese plants.

Introducing Nihon Kusaki Lab

Nihon Kusaki Lab, also known as Japanese Botanical Lab, was founded by Tomoka Furuya and Rie Kimoto in 2021. Tomoka had previously launched her own craft-cola brand Tomo Cola, while Rie is an award-winning creative director for branding firm HARKEN. The idea for Nihon Kusaki Lab came from a chance discovery that locally available plants could substitute for herbs and spices non-native to Japan. The company’s signature product, Forest Syrup, is made with water, sugar and ingredients sourced from five Japanese trees. Nihon Kusaki Lab was awarded the Special Prize at the crQlr Awards 2022 for its bottom-up approach to solving structural issues in the forestry sector. 

Nihon Kusaki Lab is already finding international customers for its line-up of Japanese food products and ingredients. To find out more, FabCafe CCO, Kelsie Stewart caught up with Nihon Kusaki Lab’s Global Business Manager Riko Sakamoto at this year’s Bangkok Design Week.

FabCafe CCO Kelsie Stewart (left) and Nihon Kusaki Lab’s Global Business Manager Riko Sakamoto (right) meet in Bangkok to discuss the goals of Nihon Kusaki Lab.

Broadening the range of Japanese spices

Kelsie (FabCafe): Thank you for joining me today at Bangkok Design Week and welcome to FabCafe Bangkok, Riko! Is this your first time in Thailand?

Riko (NKL): Yes, this is my first time in Thailand and my first time joining a Design Week! It’s very exciting!

Kelsie (FabCafe): We’ve had over 1,600 people join us on the opening day. You’re here representing Nihon Kusaki Lab. Could you start by telling us a bit about the origins and aims of the company?

Riko (NKL): We’re a research institute created to find new value from the Japanese forests, which cover 70% of our land. One of our co-founders Tomoka had been researching spices as she owns a craft cola brand. She began to wonder if she could find flavourful Japanese spices to use in her own products. Then she had the idea to create a brand specializing in plants from Japan that could be used as our next everyday table spices.

Kelsie (FabCafe): I understand that the majority of spices in Japan are imported, yet there’s a long history and tradition of flavoring food with local spices.

Riko (NKL): Yes, most of the spices sold at supermarkets in Japan, like cinnamon and pepper, are imported. Yuzukosho and sansho are the only popular spices that originate from Japan. So we wanted more opportunities to have Japanese spices on our tables.

Parts from a Japanese pine tree and kuromoji spice bush have been used by Nihon Kusaki Lab to make forest syrup.

Promoting the concept of edible trees

Kelsie (FabCafe): The overarching vision for Nihon Kusaki Lab is to create a successful economic model for Japanese forestry. Could you tell us more about that? 

Riko (NKL): While we want to provide daily spices for customers, our main goal is to make a new economic cycle for mountain owners in Japan. We have so much mountainous land, but the value of forestry resources is very low. So we’ve been entering into partnerships with individual landowners in each region. We’re able to offer prices that are 30 to 50 times higher than if those same resources were sold as timber. That’s because our prices are aligned with the luxury food market, not the timber trade.

Kelsie (FabCafe): I hear that you’ve already partnered with over 15 mountain owners from Hokkaido down to Okinawa. What has been your experience working with these partners?

Riko (NKL): One of our first challenges was to explain the concept of edible trees. We needed the owners to understand that we would actually be distilling trees to make syrup or sake. Because this is all so new and surprising for them, we also conduct joint research with chemical laboratories to show that certain tree products are safe for people to consume.

Nihon Kusaki Lab’s packaging utilizes traditional Japanese design elements.

Kelsie (FabCafe): So you don’t simply have the goal of creating and selling the products. You’re researching the mountains and finding potential new ingredients, then finding out if they’re safe and who the potential consumers of these products might be. I understand that you’ve also worked with some local people who do know the potential of these tree products for food and beverages?

Riko (NKL): Yes, our Fallen Leaf beverage uses the leaves from a native Japanese tree called katsura. When katsura leaves fall from the tree, for a period of two to four weeks they smell like sweet caramel. I’ve heard from locals in places where katsura trees grow that the whole city or area would smell sweet during the fall. So when some people buy our products, they say it reminds them of their childhood. 

Riko (left) and Kelsie (right) discuss how they use traditional packaging to connect with younger generations.

Traditional packaging as a new form of luxury

Kelsie (FabCafe): In the branding of Forest Syrup, I can’t help but notice that there seems to be this emphasis on appealing to the younger generation. How are you ensuring that Forest Syrup is aligned with their preferences?

Riko (NKL): A lot of our packaging is actually based on traditional packaging that was used in daily life in Japan. For example, a seasonal gift product we did last year was wrapped in a traditional egg basket made from straw. That kind of packaging wasn’t historically considered luxurious. It was commonly used by our ancestors, but it seems to connect with young consumers today.

Kelsie (FabCafe): That’s very interesting! I’ve seen that packaging and it’s reminiscent of something from the Edo period. You can imagine that people were using this instead of a cardboard egg case. But if you present this as a sustainable alternative in the modern world, it can look quite stylish. It has a more luxurious feel because it’s not paper and it’s not plastic. It’s also strong, beautiful and reusable.

Riko (NKL): Thank you! We like to think that branding is the added value we bring. There are other people doing interesting things with local ingredients, but they often lack the brand strategy. We not only make products, but we can help with the branding of other products that we believe have high value.

The Thai Prime Minister visited FabCafe Bangkok and tried Nihon Kusaki Lab’s signature forest syrup.

Bangkok Design Week as a gateway to the world

Kelsie (FabCafe): Could you tell us more about the kind of interactions you’re having with people here at Bangkok Design Week? 

Riko (NKL): Eating trees is very new to people in Thailand as well. Whenever I explain to them that we make syrup out of trees, I can see their eyes light up with excitement. I’m also very surprised by the diversity of people at Bangkok Design Week. For example, today I’ve spoken with people from Peru, Korea, Russia and Poland. Whatever their nationality, when I give people a sample of kuromoji, they all notice for the first time how nice and sweet a tree smells. And it’s just a snapped-off branch.

Kelsie (FabCafe): I notice the diversity of nationalities here, but there’s also a diversity of backgrounds among the attendees. There was a chef who owns six restaurants, an urban designer who was one of the speakers, and we even talked to the Prime Minister of Thailand. He spent a lot of time at your booth!

Riko (NKL): The Thai Prime Minister got to taste our Forest Syrup. I think he liked the flavor. He said it tastes like cola. Actually, I was surprised by how much the Thai government is involved in this event. I don’t see that happen often in Japan, the national government getting involved in design events. 

Riko holds a bottle of forest syrup in front of their exhibition at Bangkok Design Week 2024 at FabCafe Bangkok.

The global potential of Japanese forest ingredients

Kelsie (FabCafe): You’re here in Bangkok to explore new partnerships outside Japan. What kind of partners are you looking for especially?

Riko (NKL): We’d like to partner with larger food and beverage companies as a provider of ingredients for new products for the Japanese and global markets. We have a private wholesale website where we sell Japanese forest ingredients in bulk to restaurants and hotels, and we’re slowly building a customer base of global chefs and restaurants. Our Forest Syrup has even been used at private parties held by luxury brands. But while spreading these Japanese ingredients is important, creating a new economic model and adding value to the mountains is the real impact we’re striving to create.

The crQlr Awards exhibit several winners in locations across the world every year.

The crQlr Awards: a platform for the circular economy

Nihon Kusaki Lab is just one of dozens of projects recognized by the crQlr Awards for their work towards implementing a more circular economy. Despite the name, circularity is not just about the flow of material goods in society. It also involves establishing new economic partnerships between previously unrelated industries – in this case food and forestry – to realize a more resilient, equitable and even regenerative future. Each crQlr Award winner receives feedback from expert judges and a platform to share what they’ve learned with other circularity practitioners worldwide.

See other inspiring examples of circular projects in the full list of crQlr Awards 2023 winners. You can also read more about Nihon Kusaki Lab in the list of 2022 winners.

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