Takatsugu Yamashita: "Reinventing Chocolate" Through the Sanpo-Yoshi (Three-Way Satisfaction) Approach

2019/11/26

I began writing this text in a rural town called Sabalos in the Republic of Nicaragua. For the chocolate brand I founded, "Minimal – Bean to Bar Chocolate –," I travel to cacao plantations all over the world in search of high-quality beans. As a buyer, I spend about four months a year in countries located directly on the equator.

Broadly speaking, chocolate has historically been a choice between two options: inexpensive snacks or luxury brands. We believe a third pole can emerge—a world where people enjoy limited-edition, special chocolates specified by origin or plantation, similar to the world of Romanee-Conti in wine. This is our brand vision: "Reinventing Chocolate." We are making chocolate with the belief that such a future will arrive in 10 or 20 years.

What surprises me when I visit plantations is that there are still cacao farmers who have never eaten chocolate. The industrial structure of the old colonial trade era remains deeply rooted. By offering the option of direct trade at prices higher than the market rate, we can return price-setting power to farmers who were previously dominated by a volume-based economy. The key here is to help them understand what quality means, and for that, it is very important to go and talk to them in person.

Equally important is thoroughly understanding the individuality of the cacao beans that farmers have poured their souls into and expressing that through chocolate. Cacao beans from the same plantation and the same tree taste different depending on the season. To understand these differences, I eat chocolate every day until I feel sick, change the recipe for every batch of beans, and create over 3,000 recipes a year. As a result, we have received many awards, including the Grand Gold Award in specific categories at international competitions. However, this is not the goal; what matters is that we are providing customers with a rich culinary experience through chocolate. If it isn't delicious, we cannot continue to receive payment from customers, and we cannot sustain our purchases from farmers. That is why we continue to pursue deliciousness. There is a long way to go, but we are continuing our efforts to create chocolate where consumers can recognize the individuality of the plantation with just one bite.

If we can create a "Sanpo-Yoshi" (three-way satisfaction) relationship—where we pay farmers a fair price, make good chocolate, and customers are satisfied and pay for it—we can build a new ecosystem. This is not mere charity; by growing the business, global disparities are corrected, and the world becomes just a little bit better. I want to continue working hard, believing in such a future.