Free Café Harimaya Station

Free rice crackers: the tasty key to Japan's future?

Sometimes to get noticed as a business you have to do something outrageous. In Japan, that can mean dressing up in chicken costumes and having half-price days–or even weeks. Harimaya Honten, one of Japan’s most famous rice cracker producers, has gone one further: introduce a store to one of the most expensive areas in Osaka and make everything totally free. And at the same time, they’re promoting a strong environmental message.

“There are two major management goals,” explains company president Sukejiro Harimaya on the company website in an in-depth and personal outline of his goals. “One is to share the delightful taste of traditional Japanese rice crackers with people in the 10-40 age group; the other, which is the main purpose of the café, is to share with young people the seriousness and pressing nature of global environmental problems, the fundamental solutions that currently exist, and to track in real time the progress that is being made.”

Harimaya Honten’s first store appeared around 24 years ago as an evolution of the company’s rice cracker mail order business. While mail order continues to be the main revenue stream, the cafes strengthen the brand. The first stores were run around the traditional cafe business model, making profit entirely from selling drinks and foods. Four years ago, the free stores (known as Harimaya Stations) were introduced. They offer free crackers and drinks to the public and make profit by providing, according to Tokyo headquarters employee Steve Mori who spoke to KS in a telephone interview, “the best crackers in Japan. The senbei are free because they [the customers] taste our food and like it. We offer them a different kind of cracker each day, so they can try all our flavors. Some are free and others the customer pays for. Most customers carry on buying them.”

Alongside the free products, Harimaya Stations provide information about environmental issues, offering a long-term vision for Japan. Sukejiro had the honor of presenting a thesis about this subject to the crown prince of Japan. His work, entitled “Recommendations for Fundamental Solutions to Environmental Problems”, set out a series of solutions to all of Japan’s numerous pollution and waste problems.
Mori furthered the argument: “Everything [in the store] is reusable... We hope that this will help make our world a better place. Most other shops are always throwing things away,” he explained. “Careful separation of materials for recycling happens every day, and the staff is keen to make sure customers understand this.”

Sukejiro clearly emphasizes the mission on the website: “True life is to live in harmony with nature. Let us lead the world in ceasing from all conflict and quietly return to nature, completely and fundamentally solving global environmental problems for present and future generations.”

The company pulled in sales of approximately 78 million dollars last year, and with new stores planned in Ginza, Yokohama and eventually New York, Harimaya Honten’s vision could soon be shared by the rest of the world.

Text by Matthew Coslett
Photos by Courtesy of Free Cafe