Bottoms up: Japan’s Umami Cola looks to upend category with botanical-rich, koji-sweetened beverage
Craft cola is hugely popular in Japan with over 1,000 different varieties featuring specialty ingredients, fruits, spices and medicinal herbs.
Facing immense competition from big players in Japan, Umami Cola is hoping its formulation and packaging will help it stand out.
“Beverage is an enormous market as most consumers will need non-alcoholic beverages for their entire lives, but these are relatively lower in cost in Japan so consumers tend to just purchase as-is without thinking too much – so in this market most brand successes belong only to the big companies,” Umami Cola Founder Yamada Takahisa told the floor at the recent Food and Beverage Innovation Forum (FBIF) 2024.
“So in order to stand out we decided that we have to be completely different and really change the perspective of consumers as to what cola can be – one of the most radical ways we came up with was to basically turn the can design upside down, meaning that the tab to open it is located at the bottom of the can instead of the top.
“We also added the key feature of place our ingredients list on a front-of-pack position and putting these in large font so that consumers need to strain and search for these – this is not only transparent but also shows our confidence in the ingredients we are using to make Umami Cola.
“This product also clearly stands apart from other colas because it specifically requests consumers to ‘shake before consumption’ – soft drinks in general are not mixed or shaken, but here we definitely want consumers to do so as we use many ingredients to make our products including real herbs and spices which tend to form a sediment at the bottom of the can, and we are proud of this as it shows that we definitely use real ingredients.”
Cola for health
Umami Cola also positions itself as a healthier beverage and particularly as a natural energy drink, crediting its benefits to the use of koji as a natural sweetener.
“Koji is made from fermented rice and is very high in nutrients as well as naturally sweet, so we use this to replace cane sugar,” he said.
“Koji is known to have over 350 beneficial components and to be good for gut health and overall general well-being,
“We are focusing on specific occasions in order to find our best niche, such as e-sports and various health-focused activities such as saunas, yoga, marathons and more.
“E-sports will be an important one as many of these players want the benefits of energy drinks but are worried about these having negative impacts on health so Umami can be a natural alternative.
“As for the health-focused activities, at present in Japan many athletes already consumer koji as data has shown that it is beneficial in reducing tiredness so having this as a cola with the benefit of even more beneficial ingredients will undoubtedly be of interest.”
