Meros

Welcome back, Kana! Second-year summer assistant!

Posted by Team Meros in News

Summer is here and that means….Kana is back! Kana Yamada is back for her second year as a summer research assistant. Kana just finished her third year at Wellesley College in the US, where she is a political science and music major, and has returned here to her hometown of Tokyo to continue her work with Meros.

“I wanted to come back to Meros for the summer because I had such a rich experience as an summer research assistant last summer. At the time I had barely any knowledge of consulting nor profound insights into the agriculture and food industry, but through the opportunity of joining some actual projects, I was able to learn research methods, ways to organize data, and how to conduct interviews. But the primary reason was that everybody on the Meros team is very welcoming, work-efficient, brilliant, and became my role models. The warm community enabled me to learn and grow, and as a second-year intern, I am hoping to be able to help the Meros team even more compared to last year.”

This summer Kana will be digging into the background of Japan’s new Green Food System Strategy and sustainability trends in trade and sourcing in the food and agriculture supply chain. “This summer, I am working on a research project on Japan’s new Green Food System Strategy. As the world is facing severe environmental challenges due to climate change and the agriculture industry in Japan has been stagnant for years, the Strategy is seen as a driver for a building a more sustainable society and more resilient supply chains. I am intrigued to see how the policy can (or cannot) be a trigger for a change and how the Japanese food industry will transition to a stronger and more sustainable system.”

Kana also plans to use the summer to plan for the future. “Some things I am looking forward to doing this summer are meeting up with friends and looking for jobs. I had not been able to see my friends as often recently as the COVID situation was very unstable with the new variants appearing. As many of my friends are already in their last year of college, I am hoping to see them and catch up with what has been going on with their life. In addition, I hope to use my summertime to clarify what job I would like to do after graduating college. Along with attending some career forums, I think working at Meros will enable me to meet people from many companies, industries, and positions, which would be an inspiration in figuring out what (and where) I see myself working in the future.

Welcome back, Kana! We look forward to your positive energy and contributions!

10 Jun

Meros welcomes summer research assistant, Tomo Nagai!

Posted by Team Meros in News

Meros welcomes its newest summer research assistant, Tomo Nagai. Tomo grew up in Hong Kong and will be a final year student at the University of Exeter in the UK, where he is a business management major.

Tomo discussed with us his reasons for joining Meros this summer. “I felt that Meros was a good fit for me as I am very interested in consulting and I value training and learning greatly, especially at this stage of my career. Meros is filled with workers who have rich consulting experience who can offer great mentorship for me this summer.”

“Initially I thought of possibly joining a “big name” firm but talking to both Lucia and Ayako in the interview about the benefits of working in a boutique firm, I thought our values aligned and I knew I would have a great learning experience that I would not get anywhere else.”

“I like that there is a clear sense of a team within Meros. Being a small company, it is important to have great communication and collaboration between team members and that can clearly be observed when working here. From day one I felt very welcomed and had very little difficulty integrating with the whole team which shows Meros’ friendly and team-oriented character.”

“I also really like and respect the attention to detail that Meros provide in their solutions and recommendations. Meros seems to differentiate themselves by really focusing on getting deep information which makes a huge difference for their clients. I can already tell that Meros aims to provide the best possible service to their clients which is an important skill that I want to take away.”

This summer, Tomo will be involved in a number of Meros projects related to different aspects of agtech. He will also be conducting a more in-depth project on the dynamics of the aging labor force in agriculture in Japan and how technology may be one way to address this challenge. He will be continuing Meros’ ongoing tracking of Japanese start-ups in related fields, including automation, robotics and drones.

“I am also excited about actually going to the field and doing primary research through interviews and surveys. Doing this will allow me to get quality information that I would not be able to get anywhere else, which is an exciting thought.”

“I chose the topic of labor and technology as I thought it was a relevant topic in the current climate of Japan. Agriculture has always been a big part of this country and an industry that has allowed Japan to be famous for its cuisine. I read many articles about the struggles that farmers are facing due to the aging workforce and lack of succession which made me want to find an explanation and an answer to solve this problem. Hopefully, I will be able to find a suitable solution that could potentially help reignite this famous industry.”

Tomo is also looking forward to exploring Tokyo this summer. “The main thing I’m looking forward to is the food. In the UK, food is extremely expensive and mazui. Here, pretty much every street has a restaurant that trumps anything in Exeter and I’ll be making sure that I’m eating well.”

“Another thing I’m looking forward to is catching up with old primary school friends that live in Tokyo. I haven’t been able to meet them in 3 years and this will be a great opportunity to rekindle many relationships that have been slowly dissipating due to the lack of contact.”

Welcome, Tomo! We look forward to having you with us this summer!

07 Dec

CBD, Hemp Fiber, Seeds and Oil: Meros – USDA report series on Japan’s market for hemp-derived products released

Posted by Lucia Vancura in Market Trends, Publications

Anyone exploring the shops and cafes of Japan’s major cities in the past two years has certainly noticed the explosion of CBD products on retail shelves, online shops and in a growing number of cafes. CBD consumer products range from tinctures and gummies to cosmetics and even pet products, some imported and some manufactured in Japan using CBD raw materials primarily from the U.S., China and the EU.

While CBD products are a major current trend, interest in the Japanese market for a variety of hemp-derived products has grown dramatically in the past few years.Hemp seed and hemp seed oil appear poised for growth in the Japanese health food sector; longer term, there may be opportunities for hemp fiber in construction, insulation and plastic.

Meros recently teamed up with the U.S. Embassy Japan to develop a series of reports on the Japanese market and import regulations for hemp-derived products, to serve as a resource for U.S. exporters planning their business development in Japan. The 2018 U.S. Farm bill legalized the production of industrial hemp in the U.S., defined any cannabis plant or derivative thereof, that contains not more than 0.3 percent delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”) on a dry-weight basis. This authorization of production in the U.S. has brought optimism that a new commodity crop can be developed in the U.S., with a wide range of uses in industrial, feed and wellness markets and potential for export to global markets.

While Japan has a long history of hemp cultivation, today Japan’s domestic hemp use is mainly limited to fiber for traditional uses linked to the Shinto religion, such as shimenawa ropes decorating shrines or the belts of top ranked sumo champions. To grow cannabis in Japan, a cultivation license is necessary and as of 2019 there were only 35 licensed cannabis cultivators, primarily in Tochigi Prefecture, and a total of 9 hectares under cultivation. There is little expectation that this number will increase in the near term.

And yet industrial hemp has a wide potential range of uses in Japan from seeds for human and animal consumption, fiber for use in apparel, building insulation, plastics and construction materials to hemp extracts such as CBD and other cannabinoids in cosmetics and wellness products. It is expected that these raw materials will need to be imported to Japan; this makes it essential for potential hemp product suppliers to have a deep un

Under Japan’s legal regulatory framework, the Cannabis Control Act bans importation of “cannabis”. The Act defines ‘cannabis’ as “the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa L.) and its products. However, mature cannabis stalks and products made from stalks (excluding resin, which is illegal), as well as cannabis seeds and products made from the seeds are excluded from this legal definition of “cannabis”. Japan has a zero-tolerance level for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in any product.

The Cannabis Control Act does not explicitly mention THC, however, in practice, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) interprets the presence of THC in a product to mean that parts of the cannabis plant other than mature stalks or seeds were used.Unacceptable parts include flowers, buds, leaves, immature stalks, or roots.

Exporting hemp products to Japan, therefore, requires various documentation and administrative steps in order to comply with the import regulations for legal hemp products.

In this new series of reports, Meros not only looks at the current market dynamics of each product category, but also examples of the import flow and documentation required for hemp fiber, hemp seed, hemp seed oil, CBD and hemp extract products.

Further regulatory changes are expected Japan’s hemp product market in the coming years, so success as a supplier to Japan’s hemp product markets will require on-going observation of the changing dynamics of each market and potential changes in regulation. As always, strong relationships with importers and partners in Japan will be critical for suppliers to navigate these dynamic markets.

The series of reports can be found at the following links:

The Japanese Market for Hemp Fiber

The Japanese Market for Hemp Seed and Hemp Seed Oil Products

The Japanese Market for CBD and Hemp Extracts