PROFILE
As a traveling grocer, he travels around the country and prepares truly delicious seasonal vegetables on a daily basis. In addition to online sales and event openings, as a new challenge for their 10th anniversary, they have opened their first actual grocery store and shipping facility, as well as an ice cream shop "KIKI NATURAL ICECREAM" that makes use of seasonal produce and loss-making ingredients, as a base for travel, called micotoya house", a travel hub with a "KIKI NATURAL ICECREAM" ice cream shop that utilizes seasonal produce and loss-free ingredients! We spoke with the representative of the company, Teppei Suzuki.
Ice cream is the King of Pop .
How do you feel about having your first street store on the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of Mikotoya?
Suzuki: I had a longing for a place where anyone could come, and I am glad to have such a place. . I feel that the store is becoming a part of the community. I have the privilege of being a green grocer, and I can talk to people on the street (laughs). (laughs) . If I didn't have an apron on and talked to people like this, I would be a dangerous person (laughs). Anyway, I actively communicate with people around here.
The customers all seem to be having a good time, and many of them come especially for the ice cream that makes use of the ingredients that are lost, which is located just inside the entrance. Ice cream in a grocery store is unexpected.
Suzuki: If a store simply sells vegetables, it is difficult to make it a viable business. Vegetables have poor profit margins and losses are sometimes incurred. So I thought it would be better to do something together.... I've been working with vegetables for 10 years, and I've learned that they are quick to run out of season (easily damaged). Even at the production site, those with poor color, gloss, and shape cannot be sold, so farmers often lose money by not shipping them out. Having seen this kind of scene, food loss was one theme for us when we opened the restaurant. . We wanted to prevent as much as possible the loss of what was taken for granted in agriculture.
But why ice cream?
Suzuki: Ice cream is not lossy. To be precise, ice cream is not required to be labeled with an expiration date. So, in the extreme, there is no loss because it does not have to be thrown away. By the way, apart from ice cream, there was also the idea of pickles. When I go to the supermarket, all I see are pickles with additives, and there are not many good pickles. There is a pickle culture in many parts of Japan, and I myself like to visit local pickle shops as a traveling grocer. Pickles are interesting because they are filled with the culture, background, and wisdom of each place. But they stink, so pickles are the next step (laughs).
. corn is gluten-free vegan corn.
A whopping 90 different ice cream recipes have already been developed. The lineup of flavors on this day included: hoji chai, cacao mass and cacao nibs, strawberry milk chocolate chip, red wine squeezed dregs, honey rose, hozuki milk, crown daisy and a little salt, burdock root, Kiyomi orange + cumin, and sake dregs and sake.
I was surprised at the originality of all the ice cream flavors I received, which I have not seen anywhere else.
Suzuki: . We, too, have learned a lot from visiting vegetable growing areas and meeting various people and places. When I was thinking about food loss, I remembered that I had heard about loss at a winery in Miyagi Prefecture, and I thought about the taste of "red wine dregs". Also, there is a lot of loss in the vineyards. Strawberries that have been rejected because they are uneven, or fruit that has fallen and is not for sale, are gathered without our awareness. （The laurel (one of the flavors) comes from the garden behind this building . I used it and it made a very tasty ice cream. . you can make good ice cream with those kinds of losses.
You are actively utilizing ingredients that would normally be destined for food loss, aren't you?
Suzuki: Yes . The espresso used as a flavor is made by "ONIBUS COFFEE" in Tokyo. We also use the leftover Asakura pepper and lemon juice from a Japanese izakaya in Hyogo Prefecture called "TANIGAKI" in our ice cream. Both are still under development.
By the way, all the ice cream was really delicious! Ice cream is a good thing, isn't it?
Suzuki: For example, serious topics such as the backgrounds of individual farmers and the problems of native species might become a bit preachy if they are presented through vegetables. But with ice cream, it becomes pop. It's the King of Pop. And it's not gelato that is served in a cone, it's round ice cream that is popped. We know how unstable ice cream is, and it's okay if you drop it when you're trying to eat it (laughs). Some people actually dropped them, and we gave them new ice cream. Even if the ice cream falls off, it is acceptable (laughs). (Laughs) Moreover, through this kind of ice cream, customers can feel that out-of-spec or uneven vegetables are a normal part of the produce. . For this reason, the first prerequisite is that it must taste good and pop.
. It is true that if you speak seriously about important things as they are, it is difficult to be seen as a serious person.
Suzuki: When I first started my own fruit and vegetable shop, I used to explain with great force, "These vegetables are grown naturally!" I explained with all my might. Also, at the time, I walked around town barefoot without shoes and thought such a style was natural, but thinking about it now, I realized that would be a turnoff (laughs). I wouldn't lend an ear to someone who doesn't wear shoes (laughs). It is not enough to look like an odd guy doing an odd thing; it needs to be pop and casual in a way that everyone can understand.
