OYAOYA Founding Story

Jan 12, 2022

I want to be like a greengrocer, connecting farmers with consumers.

This sentiment is embodied in our brand name, OYAOYA, which adds the Kyoto-style honorific "O" to "Yaoya" (greengrocer), while also hinting at the presence of "Yasai" (vegetables). Hello, I'm Rei Kojima, the representative of OYAOYA.

OYAOYA is a new dried vegetable brand from Kyoto that addresses food loss reduction and the sustainability of agriculture by adding value to vegetables that would otherwise go to waste.

Encounter with Non-Standard Vegetables

Born and raised in Kyoto, I studied agriculture at university, focusing my research on organic mikan farmers in Ehime Prefecture. I launched OYAOYA while still a student, and I've loved vegetables since I was a child. My absolute favorite is Manganji pepper. It was a Manganji pepper, lovingly cultivated by a farmer I was indebted to in Fukuchiyama in northern Kyoto, that showed me the deliciousness and the reality of vegetables that often go unnoticed, and sparked the idea for the brand's business model.

万願寺とうがらし

However, even with the idea of commercializing non-standard vegetables, the more I learned about the agricultural scene, the more challenges I discovered. As my best friend's grandfather, a farmer in Kyotango, also told me before I visited the Fukuchiyama farmers, vegetables with irregular shapes, sizes, or blemishes are often seen as "seconds" and are expected to be available cheaply. This leads to price negotiations or price competition at direct sales outlets, making it difficult to turn a profit.

Since non-standard vegetables are not very profitable, it's a great help to have someone buy them. However, even if they are non-standard, I wish they would be purchased at a fair price, not at a bargain.

My best friend's grandfather conveyed this long-unfulfilled wish to me.

OYAOYA's Promise

What OYAOYA values most is a win-win relationship with farmers. We essentially purchase non-standard vegetables, which are reborn as dried vegetables, at the farmers' asking price. Although they are non-standard, the production costs remain the same, and the effort and time invested vary from farmer to farmer. Therefore, I believe it is right to purchase them at a fair price based on the prices farmers usually ship at, rather than a uniform price.

Although it's a business, the win-win relationship I cherish isn't just about money. Listening to the lamentations from the field that many people are interested in agriculture but also quit quickly, OYAOYA wants to continue to be a business that can have long-lasting relationships with farmers.

エチエ農産

And by consuming OYAOYA's dried vegetables in a way that allows the farmers' faces to be seen, we want to cultivate deliciousness together with all of you and work towards the sustainability of agriculture. The agricultural scene, which is often imagined to be dark or difficult, actually holds a very bright and wonderful world.

If I'm going to do business, I want to promise a mutually beneficial relationship. I always carry the words entrusted to me by my best friend's grandfather, who has been farming for many years.