Vol.10 One year has passed since the project started in spring 2024. The past and future of “&mog by Mitsui Fudosan” as it enters its second year [Mitsui Fudosan]

“&mog by Mitsui Fudosan” is a one-stop platform that supports food business development from concept design to urban implementation. The keyword for this project, which started this spring in Nihonbashi, is “cultivating the future of food in the city.” Mitsui Fudosan is working with partner companies involved in food to carry out various activities to create new innovations.

“&mog Kingdom” introduces monthly project events and the latest news. We report on new food trends starting from Nihonbashi!

It has been exactly one year since the launch of “&mog by Mitsui Fudosan,” a platform aimed at creating food businesses, in March 2024. We have introduced various initiatives in this series, but this time we spoke with Nobutaka Yoshida, who has been promoting the project, about its results and future challenges.

“Looking back on it, I realized that it perfectly matches the vision I had a year ago. Being the first year, we had two major goals. One was to raise awareness of &mog. The other was to create a space where players could develop their own businesses,” he says.

The awareness has been raised by the many events held over the past year. One of the most symbolic events was the existence of “SKS JAPAN,” a global conference for the co-creation of food. “&mog by Mitsui Fudosan” has been working hard on this event from various angles, including arranging the venue, preparations, and exhibits in the streets of Nihonbashi.

“It was very significant that we were able to hold SKS JAPAN in Nihonbashi. Until now, the exhibits of participating companies were contained within the venue, but we wanted to involve the general public, who are the end consumers of food, in the event, and this time we were able to create that opportunity by holding an exhibit in the town. It is important that the exhibitors have a place to reach out to the general public, and that they can receive feedback from consumers and reflect it in their business activities.”

As for the second goal, a place where players can develop their businesses, the research support facility “&mog Food Lab,” which was completed in February of this year, will take on this role.

The &mog Food Lab, which opened in Tomizawacho, Nihonbashi, is planned to be used as a test kitchen for manufacturers and startups to support business development. The building is five stories tall, with the first floor housing a space and kitchen for business meetings and tastings, and the second to fourth floors also housing test kitchens where manufacturing permits can be obtained. The fifth floor also has a photography studio and a conference room.

Rental contracts can be flexible, ranging from mid- to long-term, such as one or two years, to spot use, such as three hours a day or Monday through Wednesday. By creating this kitchen lab in the Nihonbashi area, the company hopes to accelerate the creation of food-related businesses.

“Our first kitchen lab, &mog Food Lab, also served as a case study. We are working on improving the operating scheme while examining things like what kind of equipment is needed and what kind of players will need the venue to gather. We would like to make it a little larger in the future,” says Yoshida.

The launch of “&mog Food Lab” has significantly changed the position of “&mog by Mitsui Fudosan.”

“Until now, our efforts have focused on providing information and technology support, such as connecting major companies with startups, introducing human resources, and conducting test marketing. In other words, most of our support has been on the soft side, but with the opening of the physical facility, ‘&mog Food Lab,’ I think our efforts will become more concrete and visible. In that sense, I think people will be able to feel even more of the resolve of ‘&mog by Mitsui Fudosan.'”

In addition, the company has made many achievements in the past year in terms of collaboration with startups. Yoshida says that one of the most memorable was “kinpun,” a company that puts natto bacteria into practical use as a protein.

“The key was how to commercialize the existing product kin-pun. So we asked a cooking expert we had connections to suggest recipes and created a prototype. We then carried out test marketing at an event held in the plaza below the Mitsui Fudosan headquarters to find out how consumers responded to the recipes. It was great that we were able to connect the dot of proposing the idea with the line of marketing.”

“&mog by Mitsui Fudosan” has also played a part in addressing issues unique to startups as well as large companies.

“A large company had created a plant-based food product, and although the new business team had made a prototype, they were concerned about how to gather evidence to appeal to higher-ups. So they held a tasting event where top chefs compared the different versions.”

This was an example of &mog’s strengths being put to good use, as it has connections with chefs at top restaurants through collaborations with partner companies, including long-established restaurants in Nihonbashi.

“At the tasting session, we received not only opinions on the taste, but also suggestions such as, if we were to sell it to restaurants, a certain shape would broaden the range of dishes it could be cooked in.” In addition, the results of testing in the company’s lab were also confirmed in a real store. Until now, even if a product was developed, no in-depth testing had been carried out, so this was a valuable opportunity to check the answers.

“Just because a company is large doesn’t mean that all departments have abundant resources. By filling in the gaps, we hope to be an opportunity to help those who have tried to do something but couldn’t, or who have problems while trying to do it. I think the essence of &mog’s activities is to help those who are short on resources, whether they are a startup or a large corporation.”

Over the past year, &mog by Mitsui Fudosan has grown to have 100 partner companies, and collaboration with many players has become stronger. For example, government agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and local governments. In the private sector, it ranges from one of Japan’s leading food manufacturers to newly established startups. In addition, partners are expanding across a wide range of business types, including financial institutions and consulting companies that are indispensable for business support.

“There are really a lot of different players out there. We’re also thinking about expanding overseas in the future. Of course, we don’t have any concrete plans yet. However, we have partners among our startups who have already begun expanding overseas, so we would like to pool our know-how and gradually create a team that can expand overseas.”

Although the number of such partners has increased dramatically, Yoshida makes it clear that the goal of &mog by Mitsui Fudosan is not to increase numbers.

“There are two types of partner companies involved: those who work with us to promote the food industry creation project, and those who receive our support. I would like to see the number of support recipients increase, but I feel that the number of partners who provide support together should be kept small, and that it is not necessary for the number to be so large.

At the moment, we have around 10 to 20 partners with whom we communicate closely to provide support. Over the past year, we have built teams of partners who share the same vision and each have their own areas of expertise. How can we further improve and maintain this better team? I believe this will lead to the value of the &mog by Mitsui Fudosan project.”

With the cooperation of these close partners, the next step will be to aim for more concrete commercialization.

“This past year has been a kind of hypothesis testing, asking whether &mog’s initiatives could even be established as a business. From now on, I want to have a clear vision of the business I envision and work to make it a reality.”

The results are coming in little by little. With a deeper understanding within the company, expectations for “&mog by Mitsui Fudosan” are also rising.

“We are now receiving a lot of enquiries from within the company. Our main business is real estate, so it is important that we are able to rent offices, but when it comes to the office space alone, the value tends to be judged solely on the rental terms. By adding &mog’s activities to the mix, there is a possibility that people will think, ‘If I move into a Mitsui Fudosan office, I can get support for various business developments, so I want to stay.’

For example, if a confectionery manufacturer was a tenant in our building, up until now we would only suggest, “We can hold a sales event like a family sale for the building’s tenants.” Any real estate company can do that, right? However, &mog by Mitsui Fudosan’s initiatives are unique to our company, so we can say, “We can support the development of new businesses with this kind of scheme.” We have become able to make such unique proposals. With this in mind, we have been receiving various consultations from within the company.

A year has passed since the start, and in the story of Momotaro, it’s like the dog, the monkey, and the pheasant have come together (laughs). From here on, we’d like to land on Onigashima and fight while verifying how we can work together,” said Yoshida. We’d like to keep an eye on &mog’s future as it enters its second year.