Perfectly portable

Small, light, non-breakable… these are my requirements for gifts to be shipped/carried overseas, but in this case it describes a new format for sake packaging, soft pouches. 

Although you may be more used to seeing these used for baby food or sports gels, they are also used for some Japanese foods such as miso, shio-kōji or sesame paste (suri-goma). And now, Rihaku Shuzō in Matsue, Gunma Prefecture (makers of Wandering Poet, Dreamy Clouds, Dance of Discovery, etc.) has turned to the format to try to create new sales channels.

Brewery president Yuichiro Tanaka launched the range at the end of March 2024, just in time for the cherry blossoms and hanami parties. He emphasised their portability compared to traditional bottles and also cans, as the pouch shrinks in size as the sake inside is consumed. The idea came to him after seeing pouch products lined up in his local supermarket, and wondering if anyone was doing the same for drinks. (Some major manufacturers are, but few smaller breweries like his.) Tanaka estimates that for a given quantity of sake, bottles take up about 10 times as much space as pouches and weigh more.

The new format is popular in souvenir shops, and some customers buy many pouches at once so the sales pattern is different from traditionally packaged sake. It also allows the brewery to reduce its dependence on glass bottles, which are still in short supply after one manufacturer went under during the pandemic.

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地酒では珍！「軽い」「割れない」「小さい」メリット満載…パウチ日本酒 狙いは新たな販路開拓 (TBS News Dig, 31 May 2024, Japanese)