Bringing a taste of Kiwi to Japan

By AINSLEY THOMSON

Two enterprising New Zealanders have found a niche market in Japan catering for Western tastes.

Kylie Hutchinson and Vanessa Bell had been teaching English in Tokyo for three years when they became frustrated by the lack of foreign food available.

When they spoke to other expatriates living in Japan, they found that the most common complaint was they could not get Western food.

So the two women decided to do something about it. They started a catering company and named it The Kiwi Kitchen.

The idea was to deliver lunch to bank and office workers. Miss Bell says they knew many workers were unable to leave their desks for lunch, so it was important the food was delivered.

They hired two employees to do deliveries and sent them out with trolleys laden with sandwiches, cakes, pies and other hot food such as pasta.

That was two years ago.

Now The Kiwi Kitchen has a staff of 15 and on an average day makes $7000 in sales.

"In the first year-and-a-half we paid off all the money we owed," says Miss Bell.

"Now we are debt-free and starting to make a profit."

The idea behind The Kiwi Kitchen may have been simple, but putting it into action was not.

Although both women spoke Japanese and were used to life in Tokyo, starting their business posed many challenges.

The first hurdles were financial. Banks would not lend them money because they were foreigners.

Luckily the women had enough saved to pay the $40,000 deposit for a 10-month lease on their shop.

Miss Bell says being young and female - both women are 28 - in the male-dominated Japanese business world was also a disadvantage.

"Suppliers don't take you seriously, they walk in and they look for a guy," she says.

These same suppliers were also surprised to find the women did not have a Japanese business partner. It is usual for foreigners who start a business there to have a Japanese partner, who negotiates contracts and smooths over cultural differences.

But Miss Bell says their decision not to have one has been to their advantage, enabling their business to be unique and to concentrate on supplying foreign food.

She says an Australian woman started a similar catering business in Tokyo shortly after them, but she enlisted the help of a Japanese partner.

As a result, the food she supplies is mainly Japanese and she has not been as successful.

"But I think in the future we are going to need a Japanese representative, because some Japanese businessmen don't feel comfortable dealing with a foreigner," says Miss Bell,

This is part of the pair's strategy to expand.

At the moment they are negotiating an investment deal which would allow them to open cafes and to expand their catering business.

This expansion is essential because The Kiwi Kitchen is now facing competition from several catering companies.

Both women would like to return to New Zealand one day, but they say they could not have achieved this level of success at home.

"I love New Zealand but I think it is just so hard back home to make a decent wage," says Miss Bell.

"When I'm in New Zealand I feel like I can never get ahead, but here [in Japan] I paid off my student loan in the first year. It feels like I'm getting somewhere."