When Nicolas Soergel became managing director of Chinriu Honten in March 2009, his objective was simple, yet undeniably ambitious.
“My aim is for this company to become the Fauchon of Japan,” says Soergel, whose normally jovial nature suddenly becomes as sharp and serious as the goods he sells. “My dream is to open shops in London, Paris and New York.”
And with that he unravels samples of the product he believes one day will wow epicureans worldwide: not green tea, sake, or Japanese sweets, but wrinkled, pinkish-red, mouth-puckeringly sour umeboshi – often referred to in English as “pickled plums”.
“The French have a rich food culture and they have been extremely clever at marketing that,” says Soergel, who holds dual German and French citizenship, and has lived in Japan for eight years. “Japan, too, has a similarly rich heritage that goes beyond the sushi, sashimi and tempura popularised in other countries. I realised that our products are a real asset, an example of that rich heritage that we must preserve
and grow.”
Soergel began his professional life at Sony while still an undergraduate in Cologne and went on to start up Dyson Germany with a former Sony colleague. He was headhunted by Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim, which brought him to Japan, and then by T-Systems Japan, where he held the positions of president and CEO. By the time he left the latter in early 2009, the company had grown from 35 to 250 staff.
A new challenge
Still only 40, Soergel has now taken on an altogether different challenge – re-invigorating a traditional Japanese company that was established in 1871 by Monya Komine, a former head chef at Odawara Castle.
Soergel’s connection with the company comes through his wife, Takako Komine, a classically trained pianist whom he met during her studies in Salzburg, and who in March became the company’s fifth-generation president.
Signs of the company’s proud 140-year heritage are immediately noticeable inside the store where a display case houses 140 jars of pickled plums – one jar for each year of production. “For many years the jars stood on a shelf collecting dust, and the first thing we did when we took over was to spend a night cleaning them,” says Soergel, who is known by his friends as Mr Umeboshi.
“It was then that I truly felt the heritage of the company and the responsibility to keep it going. The cleaning was also a symbol for what we are trying to achieve – to keep the core, the heritage, but clean up the dust from the past, and move on to make it all look new.”
To that end Soergel has introduced new technology to improve company efficiency, and new products – such as ume (plum) jam, ume pie and a unique range of hand made ume-shu (plum wine) – to lure a more varied clientele, including younger Japanese and, ultimately, people overseas. To complement tasting events he is holding at a Tokyo restaurant, Soegel has started the country’s first multilingual web-portal dedicated to plum wine (www.umeshu-japan.ning.com).
“Japanese pickles are well-suited to Western tastes, but selling Japanese products abroad is not just about selling a product,” he says. “It’s about selling the story and providing a product that lets people enjoy that story.
“A lot of people overseas are fascinated by Japan, by its heritage, its culture, and I think there is a niche there for companies with a long history such as Chinriu. It will take time, but I’m working on it.”