Tradition vs. Innovation: How Ippodo Tea is Navigating the American Market
Imperial Heritage, New World Hurdles
Hello everyone, Happy Thursday! Welcome back to Notsimple.
We're following up on our previous article about Ippodo with a sequel today. If you're curious about the last piece, please check it out using the link below.
what's essential for businesses in unfamiliar cultures?
Introducing a new beginning requires changing people's behavior, but altering habits is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. We need to make the unfamiliar feel familiar through education and by using what people already know.
Chacha Matcha: A matcha brand that recorded over $7 million in sales in the North American market in 2021
There's an interesting brand successfully developing its business using matcha in the North American market. Comparing their approach to Ippodo Tea reveals many intriguing points. The founders, all non-Asians, recorded $7 million in sales in 2021. They offer an incredibly diverse menu. They take great care to combine the unfamiliar product of matcha with familiar items like strawberries and pumpkin to ensure people don't feel awkward. In fact, mixing matcha with energy drinks and artificial strawberry flavoring might seem odd from an Asian perspective.
Moreover, despite being a matcha brand, they also sell coffee and food.
To introduce something new, you need to change people's behavior, but changing habits is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. You need to make it feel familiar through what people already know, and education is necessary.
Chacha Matcha, a matcha brand that recorded over $7 million in sales in the North American market in 2021, is successfully developing its business using matcha. Comparing their approach to Ippodo Tea reveals many interesting points. The founders, all non-Asians, recorded $7 million in sales in 2021. They introduce incredible menu items that would be unimaginable from a traditional Japanese matcha perspective, even applying strawberry latte and energy drinks to matcha. Mixing matcha with strawberries is certainly radical from an Asian standpoint. Moreover, despite being a matcha brand, they also sell coffee and food.
They've lowered the barrier to entry with familiar menu items, getting people hooked on matcha. People who have never tried matcha before can naturally be exposed to the concept and gain the courage to try it by first sampling coffee and desserts at this café. Chacha Matcha isn't the only place showing menu diversity.
FGO Organic Matcha Green Tea
FGO Organic Matcha Green Tea Powder, an Amazon bestseller in Matcha Power, provides various usage instructions on its detail page.
In line with the health-conscious concept, they suggest ways to combine this unfamiliar food with foods familiar to North American consumers, from matcha lattes to matcha cakes and matcha smoothie bowls. They even provide simple recipes. Moreover, they don't stop at matcha powder but also sell local consumer-friendly powders like cinnamon and acai.
What needs to be strengthened to convey an unfamiliar culture?
The approach can differ depending on the degree of unfamiliarity when people accept something new, balancing tradition and flexibility.
According to a Chacha Matcha interview, only 8% of Americans have experienced matcha. Education is essential in conveying an unfamiliar culture. As mentioned earlier, education here doesn't mean logically convincing people through rational explanation, but rather making it permeate people's lives and feel familiar and not strange. The 8% figure indicates that only a small minority has experienced this culture, suggesting that it might have required more radical flexibility and physical time for matcha to become familiar in this cultural context. Ippodo's various attempts, as mentioned in the previous text, might have been radical from Ippodo's perspective. However, if only 8% of the average culture where it needs to settle has experienced matcha, perhaps those attempts should have been even bolder.
Lessons we can learn
Even if it's not a complete success story, we can learn about the intensity of flexibility needed when expanding a business. While there's no definitive answer for entrepreneurs choosing means for success, as mentioned earlier, the more points to consider among numerous means, the higher the probability of success.
Cheering for Ippodo
Returning to Ippodo, as a consumer who respects the power of Ippodo's tradition, I'm also curious. How much flexibility did Ippodo need to exert influence in the North American market? And now, 10 years after opening their first NYC offline store in 2013, how much will Ippodo maintain its brand color while demonstrating flexibility in the future? Anticipating Ippodo's new attempts, I look forward to their future steps.