We're Cooking a Better World | Taichi Isaku (Graduated from the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies in 2015; Completed the master's program at the Graduate School of Media and Governance in 2017)
May 18, 2020
Taichi Isaku
Director, Co-cooking Inc.
Board Member, Slow Food Nippon
Graduated from the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies in 2015 / Completed the master's program at the Graduate School of Media and Governance in 2017
During my student days at SFC, my favorite pastime was cooking.
Shonandai was a convenient and peaceful town, but for a university student, it was a bit lacking. It took nearly an hour to get into the city, and the train fare was expensive. I liked Enoshima, but it wasn't a place you'd go to every day. Amidst all this, it was cooking that added color to my daily student life. Back then, after classes or club activities, my friends and I would head to the local supermarket and get up to all sorts of crazy things in the kitchen night after night.
These cooking sessions with friends were later named "Co-cooking" and turned into a project for my research. My research group was the Iba Lab, which focuses on the theme of creativity. This was the beginning of an inquiry that continues to this day: how can we support people's creativity through the lens of food?
I am currently a director at a startup called Co-cooking Inc. I started the company in the winter of my first year of my master's program with Kazuma Kawagoe , who was my senior from my undergraduate days and also one of my cooking buddies at the time. Our company, which inherited its name from my activities and research at SFC, continues to have the mission of making the world more creative through food and cooking.
Looking back, all the experiences I gained at SFC are being put to use in my current activities. The great thing about learning at SFC was that it was project-based. Creating booklets to exhibit at the Open Research Forum (ORF), writing papers and presenting them at international academic conferences... this style of learning, with no single right answer and a non-linear approach, suited me well. The feeling of pioneering the frontiers of knowledge through research was also a source of excitement. At a startup, the situation changes daily, and you are required to take on challenges that no one has ever attempted before. The flexible problem-solving skills required for this are essentially similar to those honed through research activities at SFC.
Currently, at Co-cooking, we are developing a service called "TABETE" that tackles the issue of food loss. The problem of food loss is complex; it arises structurally as a result of each player pursuing their own "justice." While everyone bears some responsibility, there is no single villain. Simply shouting that it's a problem and calling for good behavior will only exhaust consumers. For real change to happen, we must create a sustainable system that can be effortlessly continued within daily life and business.
In recognition of TABETE's efforts, my co-founder and CEO, Kawagoe, and I were selected for the "Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020" list, organized by Forbes magazine. However, the service is still in its growth phase, and more importantly, we are still far from achieving real change. We aim for a diverse and sustainable food system, supporting responsible production and consumption. We want to increase the number of people who can creatively design their own way of life through the choices they make in their daily lives. Without forgetting this passion, which originated during my time at SFC, I want to continue working with my colleagues to connect it to the future.