The tide changes after the encounter with a shochu maker

The father of Hideki Nagai, Chairman, whose name is Ichiju Nagai, started the “Nagai Shoten” that specialized in seafood products. The four brothers took over the business later and ran the business together.
Hideki was an outstanding idea man and had created new businesses. He had created a new business model one after another that he foresaw to be in demand in the future and responded to customers' needs with wisdom and insight.
He wanted to usher in the era and be able to carry out his own ideas right away..., he decided to go independent on January 5, 1999 and opened “Kairen”.

Kairen Building, Ltd. was established as its main focal point in real estate business

We purchased commercial buildings, renovated them, and started a business as restaurant building.
Although it has become a common practice now, renovation of a building which was still rare at that time, opened with new value added. We invited Chinese chefs to open an authentic Chinese restaurant and sushi restaurant where local fresh seafood was offered. Soon, it became a hot topic and popular social spot, restaurants were full every day. For this reason, new restaurants opened one after another. When Hideki Nagai built a restaurant building in Satsumasendai City, the flow of customers changed dramatically. In the ability to change even the location of downtown, Hideki Nagai became known as "a town creator".

In 2000, we bought a freezer warehouse in Akune City from an acquaintance and started a warehouse business. Akune City is located on the west coast of Kagoshima and is a treasure trove of majestic and abundant resources. It faces the East China Sea, and the fishing industry was flourishing. The warehousing business was steadily improving its performance by storing fishery feeds, fresh fish, and processed foods such as dry fish and kamaboko (fish paste).
In 2003, however, the sardines that we had preserved mainly in the Kairen's warehouse could not be captured at all due to the environmental change. Eventually, there weren't any products we could store in the warehouse and business quickly became tough to keep operating. While standing at the brink of bankruptcy, Hideki Nagai ran about frantically, making sales visits to several companies to sell the warehouse, but none of them came to an official contract.
Meanwhile, Sachie Nagai, president, continued to encourage Hideki, with a strong belief, that not being able to sell probably means to continue the warehousing business. In the end, the fact that the warehouse did not sell proved to be successful.

In 2004, there was a company looking for a refrigerator to store sweet potatoes. This was the moment Hideki's repeated visits to the Japan Refrigerated Warehouse Association paid off. An unprecedented trend occurred at that time and sweet potato shochu swept the market at once where wheat shochu was mainstream until then. Kagoshima's shochu makers expanded their production facilities for sweet potato shochu and together with the necessity of a freezing warehouse of sweet potatoes became high in demand. Kairen became a trading company in Kagoshima and focused on steaming and frozen storage business of sweet potatoes for shochu. However, we declined to trade because the idea of the company's material was far too different from our "carefully selected best material to make best products" policy. For this reason, we had to start from scratch all over again.
It was around 2005, we were given the opportunity to work with a local brewing company. They perceive with our company philosophy; we decided to also assist in the processing of sweet potatoes for shochu. Adjacent to Akune's warehouse, we equipped our facilities to process sweet potatoes for shochu and started a new processing business. In the same year "Satsuma" received the designation of geographical indication based on WTO's TRIPS agreement. This is a sweet potato produced in Kagoshima prefecture as raw material and can be displayed only in authentic shochu which was manufactured and packed in Kagoshima. The Kagoshima Prefecture Sake Brewery Association announced the "Satsuma Shochu Declaration" to protect and nurture this, and established the Satsuma Shochu Certified Brand Mark. "Raw material" and "raw material treatment" is vital to sake brewery. In order to not ruin the proud brand name of sweet potato shochu produced in Kagoshima prefecture, we incorporate sweet potatoes of the highest quality from the beginning when we started processing the sweet potatoes at Kairen, and we still strictly adhere to it. Depending on the growth quality of sweet potatoes, we also turn down the delivery. Sometimes we are hit with harsh words, "What kind of company is this!" behind our back but we can't bend our policy. We select only raw materials of good quality and trim it if necessary. Black spots are handled based on compliance with clients’ or company standards and even if it is mild, we dispose of them. That is the standard practice at Kairen.

Processing of sweet potatoes for shochu is conducted from September to December and is intensive work for 4 months. To hire towards this work in September, we would hire 100 part-time staff every year. The recruitment is handled by Sachie Nagai, our president. However, even with 100 people hired, when processing period is over, they're all let go. And these 100 unemployed people must search for a new job again. Is it even okay to be this selfish where we just ask them to come work for us for only 4 months? Will they come back to work for us again? Sachie Nagai thought of all these. Nonetheless, we do not have the money to continue hiring part-time employees even though we do not have a job for the remaining 8 months. Then, it dawned on us to create jobs other than processing shochu. We decided not to undertake completely new products but to raise the familiar "sweet potato processing" business.

From January to August after the processing of sweet potatoes for shochu is finished, we process sweet potatoes to make dried and baked sweet potatoes. We later manufacture and sell them as our own processed product called "Imoya Ihichiro Brand".
Eventually, we began processing sweet potatoes not only for 8 months but throughout the year. This way, we were then able to secure job for our employees throughout the year. It led to developing more skills at the workplace and higher consciousness of work to the point that we have now grown to receive the reputation as "sweet potatoes of Kairen". Our employees are proud to be professionals of sweet potatoes.
They are thoroughly enjoying working as professionals. People have sense of values and way of life, but they do not just work for money, but make time to work meaningfully. They cherish to work with joy and find it rewarding. As professionals, we want to find more value in sweet potatoes and further expand the possibilities, connecting bridges through our products and end users.