The brands of rice we use include Akitakomachi, Koshihikari, and Tsuyahime. Our farmers take great care in maintaining each brand. We rotate the farmers as the brands of rice differ to use at our oversea stores, so customers can enjoy the diversity of rice of the same high grade.
The flavor of rice can be altered by a number of factors: rice brands, field locations, weather, who grows the rice and how it was cultivated in the fields. As with wines, the flavor of rice varies each year. Our rice of this year, last year and next year have all different tastes and so we do our best to bring the best of each flavor. This is why we need to build a firm relationships with our experienced farmers to stabilize the flavor of rice every year.
The rice grown represents the diversity of health level of the environment and how the rice plant has been grown from the seeds. We also enjoy the diversity and continue to fine-tune how to cook rice and make Omusubi every day.
We have a deep understanding of where our rice comes from and who it is handled by.
All Gonbei employees in Japan experience planting and harvesting in our farmers’ rice fields every year so that we can give farmers our gratitude and have an attachment to our rice. Remembering the green rice plants at the beginning of planting and golden rice grains during the harvest represents our love as “taste.”
The market price of rice fluctuates and can go down, this is not sustainable for the rice farmers, so we have paid our contracted farmers a premium since our first shop opened. This reinforces our close-knit relationship with our farmers. We know how and where our rice grows and they know how and where their rice is being used. They visit our stores, and seeing our customers enjoy their rice motivates them to continue doing a great job.
Our Omusubi are about 1.5 times larger than the average rice balls that you find at convenience stores in Japan. The reason our Omusubi are bigger is because our corporate mission is “to contribute to Japanese farmers through the sale of Omusubi.” As of 2021, we are buying 1,000 tons of rice annually. The target in closer future we aim is to make it 2,000 tons In order to regenerate the rice fields double in width which covers 400 hectares.
