Innovation Company welzo, Creating Value in Living, Collaborates with Sweet Potato Breeding Legend Osamu Yamakawa and Save the Sweet Potato (SSP)

welzo Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Hakata-ku, Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture; President and CEO: Yoshifumi Kanao), an innovation company that creates value in living, has started a collaboration with Osamu Yamakawa (President of Yamakawa Agri-Consults, Ph.D / CULTA Breeding Technology Advisor), a legend who has led the Japanese sweet potato breeding world, and "Save the Sweet Potato (SSP)," a community aiming to revitalize the sweet potato industry in southern Kyushu. This time, we will start as a collaboration centered on sweet potatoes.

Left / Motofumi Goto (Director of welzo Biz Promotion Division / SSP Project Leader), Right / Osamu Yamakawa (President of Yamakawa Agri-Consults, Ph.D / CULTA Breeding Technology Advisor)

■ Background of the Collaboration

Mr. Yamakawa is the leading figure who has expanded Japan's sweet potato economic zone to its current state. In the past, the edible market for sweet potatoes was entirely "fluffy" types, but Mr. Yamakawa anticipated changes in consumer preferences and developed "Beni Haruka," which has a smooth and sticky sweetness. This new eating experience of a sticky, high-sugar content was explosively accepted, laying the foundation for market expansion, including the baked sweet potato boom.

Furthermore, what Mr. Yamakawa envisioned was not the success of a single variety, but the "design of a sweet potato economic zone based on three pillars." 1) Expansion into functional foods and the food processing market using pigment applications (purple sweet potatoes), 2) Urbanization and high added value of the sweet potato shochu market using fruity new varieties, and 3) Cultivation of the fresh produce and processing market using sticky edible varieties - by running these three axes simultaneously, he has built an economic zone where sweet potatoes can stand alone as an industry.

welzo deeply resonated with Mr. Yamakawa's philosophy, which has thus expanded the scope of the industry: "Do not just create varieties, but also create uses for them. Without overall optimization of production, distribution, consumption, and processing, a sustainable industry cannot be born," and started this collaboration as a partner to draw the next sweet potato economic zone together with SSP.

■ About Osamu Yamakawa

Osamu Yamakawa (Ph.D) was born in 1947. After graduating from the Faculty of Agriculture at Kyoto University (Breeding), he went through research and administrative careers at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry / Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and served as the Director of the Kyushu Okinawa Agricultural Research Center. Currently, as the representative of Yamakawa Agri-Consults, he provides agricultural consulting and trains successors. Widely known as the breeder of "Beni Haruka," he is also a world-class Japanese breeder involved in the development of "Kurume No. 49" and "Sachinoka," which are the parent varieties of "Amaou" and "Tochiotome."

Based on the belief that "technology will disappear if it is not connected," he consistently opposes hoarding, and as an advisor to culta, he actively continues to collaborate with next-generation agricultural entrepreneurs.

■ Content of the Collaboration

In this collaboration, we will advance initiatives centered on the following three axes.

[1] Utilization of variety and breeding knowledge
Inheriting the axis of consumer experience opened up by "Beni Haruka," which is "sticky and high sugar content," we will combine it with the agricultural DX and supply chain transformation that welzo is working on. Starting from the characteristics of the varieties, we will design a comprehensive sweet potato economic zone from processing, distribution, to export.

[2] Redesign of industrial structure
To embody Mr. Yamakawa's philosophy that "an industry only grows when production, consumption, distribution, and processing all work together successfully," we will promote the creation of a collaboration mechanism utilizing welzo's platform. By designing not only varieties but also uses, destinations, and ways to convey value as one, we will increase the thickness of the sweet potato economic zone.

[3] Rebuilding production areas through collaboration with the SSP community
Deepening our collaboration with SSP (Save the Sweet Potato), we will support the rebuilding of on-site capabilities, information sharing, and community strengthening in the sweet potato production areas of southern Kyushu. Under the perspective of a "long-lasting business that will interact with consumers for decades and centuries," we aim for the sustainable construction of production area brands and the independence of the economic zone.

Motofumi Goto / Director of welzo Biz Promotion Division / SSP Project Leader

■ Motofumi Goto / Director of welzo Biz Promotion Division / SSP Project Leader
"What Dr. Yamakawa has built up over many years is not just the 'thing' called a variety, but the philosophy of how to design the entire sweet potato industry. An economic zone is born only when production and consumption are connected - that way of thinking is exactly what welzo is aiming for. First, centered on sweet potatoes, we will strengthen Japan's sweet potato economic zone starting from southern Kyushu together with our friends at SSP."

Osamu Yamakawa (President of Yamakawa Agri-Consults, Ph.D / CULTA Breeding Technology Advisor)