Sake Plant In NY Seeks To Make Dent In Crowded U.S. Market

The major Japanese sake firm known for its signature product Dassai will begin brewing at a plant in New York next spring, seeking consumers in the already crowded market in the United States, Kyodo News reported.

Photo Insert: As the first major Japanese company to set up a sake production facility on the US east coast, Asahi Shuzo Co. is looking to promote sake as a go-to beverage served not only with Japanese foods but a variety of global cuisines.

As the first major Japanese company to set up a sake production facility on the US east coast, Asahi Shuzo Co. is looking to promote sake as a go-to beverage served not only with Japanese foods but a variety of global cuisines.

The company's CEO Kazuhiro Sakurai said its new 7-billion-yen ($53 million) facility in Hyde Park, over 100 kilometers north of Manhattan, should be an outpost for his bid to develop new markets in the United States.

"The sake market has been growing in the United States, but a large portion of it is served as an accompaniment to Japanese food such as sushi and tempura," Sakurai told Kyodo News.

"We are going to step into areas other than Japanese cuisine" he said, noting that his brewery created Dassai Blue, a new high-end sake of the "junmai ginjo" type, for Manhattan's choosy foodies as well as other consumers across the United States and Canada, Mainichi Shimbun also reported.

Sake has gained a large following in the American market. The beverage's exports to the United States in the January-October period rose some 25 percent from a year earlier to about 9.6 billion yen, according to the National Tax Agency of Japan.

Asahi Shuzo is a latecomer in the US-based brewing of sake by Japanese companies. Takara Holdings Inc., Gekkeikan Sake Co. and Ozeki Corp., well-established names in Japan, produce sake in the US but their production bases are all in California on the west coast.

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