Kagaseifun Corporation

The person we interviewed this time is Kentaro Kaga, the sixth president of the soba flour store “Kagai Seifun Co.
He worked in a restaurant while studying information processing in Kanazawa, obtained a chef’s license, and then returned to his hometown to engage in the family buckwheat flour milling business and set up a web store to spread the taste of Fukui Prefecture-grown buckwheat throughout Japan.

Kagaseifun Co., Ltd. has been producing buckwheat flour since its establishment, maintaining the same techniques and methods using a stone mill. The company not only produces high quality buckwheat flour with a focus on local ingredients, but also operates a noodle making business that produces high quality buckwheat noodles. This time, they have introduced Yamato Seisakusho’s Bando Taro for their buckwheat noodle making machine. We asked them about the background of the introduction and the changes they felt after the introduction.

What were the challenges you faced before introducing BandoTaro?

The company had previously used an Okuma-type noodle-making machine, but it had become old and parts procurement had become difficult, and over the years maintenance had become impossible, and it was not possible to produce high quality fresh soba noodles that met modern needs. In addition, it was not something that women could handle very well because it involved a lot of heavy lifting.

Were there any innovations or difficulties from consideration to implementation?

We had wanted to replace the machine with a new noodle-making machine at some point, not only your product, but we have been putting it off because we are a flour miller and use the machine only a few times a month, and even if we were to replace it and sell the noodles, we could not invest several million yen just for that purpose.

The impetus for the introduction of the machine came from our machine renewal work, changing market needs due to the Corona disaster, and a large subsidy. This expanded the market for raw buckwheat noodles, and we were able to see it as a viable sales channel.

Are there any changes before and after the introduction of the system?

As mentioned above, we also considered other noodle-making machines.
We had a chance to try the actual machine, but the deciding factors were that our buckwheat flour was a good match for the machine, it was the closest to the raw soba we wanted to achieve, it was quick to respond with 365-day maintenance, and it was memorable because you came to our office several times for sales. We had a good memory of the company because they came to our office several times.

It is not to say that the Okuma type noodle-making machine is not good, but the quality of the noodles made by your machine is very similar to ours, and we thought that even those with discerning palates would be pleased with the fresh noodles made by your machine, and that is what is happening now.

What are your dreams for the future?

We have a certain number of customers who cannot make soba but love delicious soba.
We would like to offer products that will please them.

Finally – what kind of an entity is Yamato Seisakusho?

It would be very impolite to call us a business partner, but if there are any soba store owners in the Fukui area who are interested in your machines, we would be happy to have them use ours, and ideally, we would be able to increase our mutual introductions of your machines.

Click here to see the noodle-making machine that was installed.

If you want to make Japanese buckwheat noodles without any training, please see BandoTaro.

BandoTaro Plus