Otaru's Tanaka Shuzo Appoints First President from Outside the Founding Family in 127 Years

At Tanaka Shuzo, a long-established sake brewing company in the Hokkaido port town of Otaru, Eizo Okada (53), previously senior managing director, has become the fifth president. According to the Hokkaido Shimbun, this is the first time in the company’s 127-year history that someone from outside the founding family has become president. Kazuyoshi Tanaka (68), the fourth president, has become chairman, retaining the authority to represent the company. It is an appointment that could offer one answer to the succession problem faced by many of Japan’s small breweries.

The first president from outside the founding family in 127 years

Otaru is a port town on the western side of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands. Tanaka Shuzo has been making sake in the town since Japan’s Meiji era. The fifth president, Mr Okada, had served as senior managing director, the position ranking next to the president in the management, and is a leader chosen from within the company. Mr Tanaka, the former president, has become chairman but retains the authority to represent the company. The handover is therefore not one in which the founding family steps away from management at once, but one in which it continues to support the company alongside the new president.

“Who will take over?”: the question facing Japan’s breweries

Most sake breweries in Japan are family businesses, in which the same family has passed on management and brewing for generations. In recent years, however, a growing number of breweries have no heir, or have families who do not wish to take over, and this has become a challenge for the industry as a whole. Bringing in a manager from outside the family is one realistic option for preserving a brewery’s name and its sake. The arrangement seen here, in which the founding family and an internal professional run the company together, also has something in common with the worries that European wineries and breweries face when one generation hands over to the next.

Enjoying sake from a northern port town in Europe

If you would like to enjoy this story in Europe, try paying attention to which brewery made a sake, and what kind of brewery it is, when you choose one. If you come across sake from a brewery in Hokkaido or Otaru in an importer’s or specialist shop’s product description, it could be fun to compare it with sake from the famous regions of Honshu. A change in management may also show in a brewery’s product range or its attitude towards overseas markets, if not immediately then within a few years. Tasting with that difference in mind, between a family-run brewery and one that has moved to a new structure, may give you a glimpse of the changes under way in the sake industry.