Hokusei North America's parent company, Hokusei Products, recently placed a highly-innovative private bond in Japan. As part of the bond arrangement, Fukui Bank is the underwriter, and will donate a portion of its underwriting commissions to organizations committed promoting Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. Relatively unknown in the U.S., SDGs have been established by the United Nations to serve as "blueprints [...]
During the month of July, the Portland Japanese Garden attracted the attention of multiple newspapers in Japan. Both the Toyama Shinbun and the Hokkoku Shinbun printed articles about the Portland organization's efforts to promote culture, art, and crafts from Japan's most northern island, Hokkaido. Of particular focus was the Portland Japanese Garden's exhibition of items related to the Ainu [...]
As shared in an earlier post, Hokusei is stepping up its relationship with Oregon Fruit Products (OFP) to provide more aseptic fruit purees for craft breweries in Japan. As a sign of this enhanced relationship, and in response to Japanese brewer demand, a major shipment of OFP's purees were shipped out to Japan earlier this month. The purees are destined for [...]
An interesting outcome of the coronavirus pandemic has been continued strong demand for craft beer in the U.S. Although many breweries have faced the challenge of adjusting their business models, the overall beer market has been quite steady, with falling on-premise (bars, restaurants, taprooms, etc.) beer sales being replaced by off-premise (e.g., supermarkets, convenience store, direct to consumer) beer consumption. [...]
On June 19, based on approval from the Oregon state government, the city of Portland and neighboring cities in Multnomah County were able to move into Phase 1 re-opening in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The move into Phase 1 will impact a number of different impacts on social gatherings and business. Restaurants, bars, pubs, etc. will be able to [...]
This week, there was a bit of bright news among the COVID-19 developments -- for the first time in almost 3 months, the Portland Japanese Garden re-opened to the public. The garden will be following a number of health guidelines to ensure visitors' health & safety, including one-way paths, timed ticketing/visits, and required use of masks. On-line reservations are required [...]
The coronavirus pandemic has caused great harm in terms of lives lost, distancing of loved ones, and damaged business. At Hokusei North America, we are waiting along with everyone else for the end of this crisis, and look forward to the day when business operations return to normal on both sides of the Pacific. In the meantime, we are taking [...]
On May 7, Oregon Governor Kate Brown laid out her plan for a phased reopening of the Oregon economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The foundation of Oregon's approach to opening up economic and recreational actives is a 3-phased expansion of permissible business activities, applied at the county level. Counties may move from the current stay-at-home requirement to Phase [...]
During the current coronavirus pandemic, it can often be difficult to stay in touch with our friends and business connections that are located locally, let alone with those found far away. This can especially be true in the case of maintaining multi-cultural/national networks, where language, cultural, and time zone differences can sometime be a challenge, even during "normal" times. Luckily, [...]
Hokusei North America works with a number of suppliers and partners in the Portland area, all of which have no doubt been adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. This has forced our partners to adapt in many ways, including limiting operations and making staff changes. That said, one of our trading partners, Allport Editions, is doing an excellent job of [...]