The local news is awash with the sad tidings that Genpei Shuzou, a Fukui nihonshu brewery founded over three hundred years ago, has filed for bankruptcy.
The sales of shochu have actually been picking up over the last few years but nihonshu is in terminal decline: The traditional rice wine has witnessed a 40% decrease in consumption over the previous decade. No doubt it hasn’t been helped by beer companies’ strategies of producing ever-cheaper (and ever more bland) beers and happoushu ersatz beers, now staple salaryman drinks.
[Pics via As the population continues to age and the older generation who favor nihonshu start to inevitably fall in numbers, the situation (named “nihonshu-banare“, or “moving away from nihonshu“) can only be improved by some drastic marketing tactics by the breweries.
We actually blogged about one great example earlier this year, where shochu brewery Shiro created an innovative web and Twitter campaign to promote its products to younger (and female) consumers.
On the other hand, commentators are optimistically pointing to the so-called “Nihonshu Boom” said to be happening in China and Korea, but clearly the interest in Japanese beverages is not translating into much in the way of hard sales just yet.
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