Based in Hokkaido, “Utopia Agriculture” is taking on the challenge of pasture-based dairy and free-range poultry farming in an attempt to produce tasty treats in a sustainable way, without burdening the global environment, animals, or people. “Bankei Farm” started in October 2022 as a new experimental site for this project.
The “Forest Regenerative Project” is an experiment in mountain dairy farming launched some 30 minutes by car west of downtown Sapporo, most of which is covered with mountain forest.
CEO of Utopia Agriculture, Shintaro Naganuma, is well known for his numerous popular brands of sweets, including “Bake Cheese Tart.” How exactly does he tackle the problems faced by livestock producers? What does he use to deliver the highest quality sweets? We caught up with him at Bankei Farm.
“3 Principles” baked in during childhood
Naganuma-san was born and raised closely with Kinotoya, a local confectionary shop in Sapporo, Hokkaido. After graduating from university in Tokyo, he went to work for a trading company. He was assigned to the Confectionery and Foodstuffs Section and put in charge of sales in Japan of products imported from overseas confectionery manufacturers together with the overseas expansion of Japanese manufacturers of confectionery.
Upon leaving the trading company, he established a business in Shanghai and worked in the family business before founding the sweets maker “BAKE”.
“In my family business, there are “three pillars of flavor”, which were drummed into me over the years: ‘Deliver fresh,’ ‘Spare no effort’ and ‘Don’t skimp on ingredients.” If you stick to these three golden rules, your confectionery will be absolutely delicious. They are the foundation of everything.
And in the process of following the three pillars, his thinking about raw materials led him to his current activities at Utopia Agriculture.
“We have always said that we wanted to operate a ranch to ‘stick to the source ingredients.’ If we had to decide between two raw materials, we would use the better one even if it was more expensive, but other companies can buy what we can buy. Even if we wanted to use pasture-raised milk, the Japanese distribution system mixes ordinary milk with pasture-raised milk. So, we still want to have our own dairy farm. And if we have our own farm, we can experiment with different breeds of cows, different feeds, etc., and gain a deeper insight into our own raw materials. As an extension, by communicating this to our customers, we can show them how serious we are about our sweets. However, it was not easy to narrow it down to that point.”
Agricultural methods meld good taste and environmental protection
After creating a number of popular sweets, Naganuma-san left the running of BAKE and spent about a year in the U.S., where he felt that the image of cows was not good. This is not only true in the U.S., but cows are now regarded as one of the factors contributing to the worsening of global warming, due to emitting methane gas through burping. Because of these effects, research and product development of alternative and cultured meats are rapidly advancing in the United States.
But is it really the cows’ fault? Isn’t there something systematically wrong with the livestock industry that needs to be improved? This is where he came across regenerative agriculture (environmentally regenerative agriculture), a method of farming and livestock farming while regenerating the environment, such as fields and pastures. After returning to Japan, Naganuma-san joined Utopia Agriculture because he sensed the possibility of having a positive impact on the environment while striving to produce flavorful treats.
“I think alternative dairy products are fine for everyday eating. But the most common use of sweets is as a gift for a loved one or to celebrate an important occasion, as a delicacy. If that is the case, we need the genuine article, and cannot make them with cultured or fake ingredients. I thought it was our responsibility as confectioners to pursue the real thing and find a sustainable way to make sweets that will last into the 22nd century.”
Utopia Agriculture is currently working with Hokkaido University on a study of the amount of carbon sequestered by soil. They are monitoring how the soil has changed each year by obtaining numerical values for the amount of carbon in the soil, as well as the amount of greenery, soil moisture, plant diversity, and the types of microorganisms.
“The term ‘environmentally regenerative agriculture’ itself is difficult to decipher, but we understand it as improving the soil, or increasing the carbon content of the soil. For example, cattle stepping on and eating grass on the farm stimulates plants, which in turn stimulates growth. They absorb carbon in the process of photosynthesis to grow.
Numerical measurements taken over a two-year period at the Hidaka Ranch showed that approximately 11 tons of carbon were sequestered per hectare (approximately 10,000 m2) per year. Meanwhile, each cow emits 10 tons of methane gas per year. Since the Hidaka Farm covers an area of 32 hectares, it is possible that the methane gas emitted by approximately 35 cows could be offset.”
Then, realizing that this effect could potentially store more carbon in the process of soil transformation, he turned his attention to the pristine forests of Bankei.
“The concern was that abandoned forests do not actually absorb much carbon. But when animals enter there and stimulate the forest through the process of changing the land, carbon absorption may increase many times over. And since there are almost no places in Japan that are doing such experiments and given that we already had a ranch in Hidaka, I thought it would make sense to do it in Bankei Forest as well.”
Naganuma-san’s research involves toiling in the mountains and on farms, and he describes his impressions of AIGLE as follows.
“The boots are really comfy to wear. I have to wear white boots on the chicken farm, but I’ll definitely use these AIGLE boots when I go to the mountains or to the farm.
Precious and happy moments discovering the real thing
Naganuma-san is on a quest for the real thing in order to push the boundaries of delicious confectionery. What exactly is he trying to achieve in the future?
“I grew up immersed in the family business “Kinotoya”, and in Hokkaido’s confectionery, and after leaving Hokkaido to study in Honshu and overseas, I realized that there is nothing more affordable and delicious than Hokkaido’s sweets. But since most of these are souvenirs, they are basically not sold outside of Hokkaido. I think this is a waste, and I would like to evolve the way we tell the story, add value, and put more effort into it, so that we can reach more people.”
He offers some final thoughts in closing.
“When I was tending chickens with my children, they touched the newborn eggs and excitedly remarked, ‘Eggs are so warm!’. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that and realized that encountering the real thing is a precious and happy time for us. With all the new trends such as industrialized livestock farming and food tech, I don’t think everything needs to be as we are doing. I just want to retain it for the future as one option for the wealth of enjoying the real thing.”
Shintaro Naganuma
Born in 1986 in Hokkaido, Japan. After graduating university, worked for a trading company. In 2011, he joined his father’s company, Kinotoya, and developed the hit product “Baked Cheese Tart.” He left BAKE in 2017 after the company underwent rapid growth. After working as a visiting scholar at Stanford University, he relaunched as the president of Utopia Agriculture, Inc. in 2020, and became the president of Hokkaido Confect Group, Inc. in 2022.
