High-end rebrand makes life sweet for Japan’s ‘ice farmers’

NIKKO (Japan), Aug 18 (AFP): In a mountainous area north of Tokyo, a priest blows a conch shell as Yuichiro Yamamoto bows and thanks the nature gods for this year's "good harvest": natural ice.

Yamamoto is one of Japan's few remaining "ice farmers", eschewing the ease of refrigeration for open-air pools to create a product that is sold to high-end shaved ice shops in trendy Tokyo districts.

His trade had all but disappeared in recent decades, and the shaved ice or kakigori that is popular throughout Japan in summer had been produced with cheap machine-made ice.

But reinventing natural-made ice as a high-end artisanal product has helped revive the sector and save his firm.

"When I started making natural ice, I wondered how I should market it. I thought I needed to transform kakigori," Yamamoto tells AFP at his ice-making field in the town of Nikko, north of Tokyo. Yamamoto took over a traditional ice-making business 13 years ago in Nikko, where he also runs a leisure park.