Fermenting success

Tony Flenley is a British man excelling in one of the most Japanese of crafts.

As an elementary school child, Anthony Flenley, president of the Osaka Miso Company, brewed ginger beer (discovering that if he added more sugar, alcohol was produced); in university, he progressed to ale; and during a stint in Kuwait, wine was his fermentation of choice, extracting the juice barefoot in his bath. When he came to Japan in the 1970s, destiny had him marry Tomoko, daughter of a third generation miso maker.

Listening to the father of two speak about it, fermentation certainly takes on a new life. “The good thing with fermentation is that you throw in a lot of things together, but you’re never exactly sure how’s it going to come out; it’s a little like pottery”, sounding a bit like a mad scientist. While the big makers in Shinshu who dominate the market produce miso in hot rooms to control the process, his company does it the traditional way, firststeam- ing rice with a mold (koji), which then ferments beans with salt, the length of fermentation following the flux of the seasons.

Basically, there are three types of miso: beans only, famous in Nagoya; barley and beans, produced in Kyushu; rice and beans, whose color varies according to the bean and rice ratio. His company’s specialty is white miso, produced with a higher percentage of koji (molded rice). Typical Osaka miso is also sweeter, due to the concentra-tion of rice, but also because sugar is sometimes added. Recommended uses include salad dressings, octopus and vinegar, and as a sweetener for oden and chicken stews.

These days, Flenley navigates the company through somewhat rough seas. He says: “We mostly deal with restaurants and hotels. Before there were a lot of individual restaurants and they would buy from small makers. But chain restaurants are getting stronger, tend to look at price first and buy in bulk from big makers.” He later adds: “To put things in perspective, I visited one of several Marukome factories. In that one factory, in one day they use the amount of rice we process in a month.”

In order to survive in this highly competitive field, the company had to find new distribution channels, including its web site and setting the helm toward niche markets and local product projects. This led to unlikely collaborations, like with giant 7-11 Holdings. This opportunity was the result of one of the many TVappeara- nces Flenley has done through the years. They usually involve a script, which he ignores these days due to past caricaturing and misrepresentation.

But that doesn’t mean that as a foreign maker of a traditional Japanese food, the locks are automatically open. Tony goes on to say: “You’re not looked down on as a foreigner, but there’s a certain amount of haughtiness. They think you probably can’t do things because it’s Japanese. But because it’s something you make, you can let the product speak for itself. And if you do make it, they are impressed and amazed that you made the effort to understand their culture.”

And that probably explains in part why, challenges notwithstanding, Flenley goes through life’s storms, fermenting ideas for future endeavors.

Osaka Miso Company
www.osakamiso.com

Text & photo: Jean-Yves Terreault