Yoshimi and Shoki Matsuzaka are the founders of kitafuku Co (lowercase intentional), a start-up that recycles spent grains from breweries to create paper products, though they were originally system engineers working for the same company. The two met when they joined the company futsal team. Yoshimi is from Hokkaido while husband Shoki hails from Fukuoka. The company name is derived from the first kanji of their respective home prefectures.
When they started their company in 2019, they initially worked as contract engineers. In their company’s second year they sought to add to that the creation of in-house products and services. They say they had a strong desire to provide tangible items that people could hold in their hands. When making purchases, they found they had a natural tendency to choose things that expressed the maker’s sentiment or told a story. That type of craftsmanship interested them, and with that simple concept in mind, they bounced around new product ideas at the office.
As residents of Yokohama, they wanted to create goods that were somehow tied to their current home. The city has progressive environmental awareness and has been designated as a “Future City” for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). While gathering information on the topic, one of the problems they learned about was food waste. The Matsuzakas wondered how much of a negative impact COVID had on food waste in restaurants and bars, and what could be done to reduce it. As they pondered this, they remembered a friend from their futsal team. Their teammate had left his previous job to take over his family business, a paper company in Nara Prefecture. He was researching how to mix waste products with pulp to make recycled paper. They promptly contacted him to visit and learn more about the process and to discuss ideas and future possibilities.
Our readers may know that Yokohama is the birthplace of beer in Japan and has more craft beer breweries than most cities in the country. The Matsuzakas were beer fans and that was the inspiration for the idea to make “craft beer paper” by mixing the spent grains with pulp. They reached out to Yokohama Beer to partner with them on the project. It’s an upcycling project in the creation of new products based on a simple storytelling line: “Embracing beer until the moment it’s yours.” For the craft beer paper manufacturing process, they adjusted the size of the mesh to prevent foreign matter from getting through, and fine-tuned the color and texture through trial and error.
Let’s take a look at one of their popular items: craft beer paper business cards. When they first meet someone and exchange cards, the fact that they are recycling spent grain from the brewing process to make paper products (which is indicated on the cards) becomes a starting point for conversation. As two people interested in addressing environmental issues and creating new products, it seems natural that they want to make something that is environmentally friendly. But without good vision and strong resolve, success can be elusive. The couple says, “We were able to achieve success because our partners cooperated so closely with us in this endeavor.” Their project is a culmination of keen design skill as well as communicativity and adaptive ideas that sprung from multiple perspectives. The message that is communicated to the person encountering such products is one of environmental awareness. It’s an issue we are all familiar with and one the world must address to make sustainability a reality. It is the Matsuzakas’ dream to spread their concept of craft beer paper internationally in the months and years ahead.