Pick 'n' Mix
There’s another story of sweet success in this issue with Rob Goss’s profile of Godiva Japan. The company now has 246 outlets in Japan and sales grew an impressive 20% between January and September of this year. (You may recognise new CEO Jérôme Chouchan from our profile of Lladro last year).
A European success story of a quite different kind, hearing aids, is also covered this month. With Japan’s population ageing, the prospects for the industry look good.
And the ageing population features in our interview with author and tourism entrepreneur Alex Kerr. He argues that inbound tourism is one of the few hopes for the ageing depopulated Japanese countryside.
We return to Tohoku with a remarkable story of cooperation between French and Japanese oyster producers. French businessman Robert Verdier and Sendai oyster distributor Hiroaki Saito explain how the Save Sanriku Oysters project came about.
Lastly, it just remains for me to let you know that this will be my last issue as editor of EURObiZ Japan. It has been a privilege to learn about so many amazing European companies in Japan. Thank you to everyone at the EBC, EURObiZ’s indefatigable writers and photographers – and of course my talented colleagues at Paradigm.
I’ll leave you in the capable hands of my successor, David Hulme. I’m sure you’ll get to know him well soon.