Beachheads are an initiative of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise intended to help businesses expand off-shore. By co-locating like-minded companies, participants can share knowledge and market intelligence, and take a 'New Zealand Inc' approach.
In particular it seems the new opportunity is of interest to the food industry. Other companies to have signed up are Cedenco Foods, supplier of fruit and vegetable powders; organic vegetable exporter Sunrise Coast New Zealand; Meat and Wool New Zealand; (and software developer Maximum Availability).
New Zealand produces five per cent of the world's blackcurrants. This year's harvest was around 8000 tonnes, 90 per cent of which is intended for export. Along with Europe, Japan is one of the key markets.
Much of the reason for Japan's prominence lies with its established health and functional foods market. According to New York-based market analyst Paul Yamaguchi and Associates, the total nutrition market in Japan is worth around US$27 billion (€21bn).
The core business of Just the Berries, one of the joint venture partners behind NZBG, is the processing of blackcurrants to yield a powder rich in antioxidant anthicyanins for use in nutraceuticals. The other partner, Horticulture Marketing Limited (HML), is a specialist in buttercup squash that has a pre-existing agreement with the New Zealand Blackcurrant Cooperative to sell currants into Japan.
The NZBG is presently liaising with other New Zealand suppliers with a view to representing their berry products in Japan.
A keen area of interest for the blackcurrant industry is in exploiting blackcurrants' anti-ageing potential, including cognitive function.
A recent in vitro study published on-line in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (doi: 10.1002/jsfa.2409) tested the effect of blackcurrant extracts against oxidative stress from hydrogen peroxide on human brain cancer cell cultures (SH-SY5Y neuroblaster cells and HL-60 cells), and found that the cells were completely protected.
Although the mechanism of Alzheimer's is not clear, more support is gathering for the build-up of plaque from amyloid deposits. The deposits are associated with an increase in brain cell damage and death from oxidative stress.
If replicated in vivo, this finding lends hope to the possibility that blackcurrants could prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease. This, in turn, gives more weight to their use in a range of processed functional foods.
NutraIngredients.com reported earlier this year that HortResearch is presently developing cultivars that aim to further boost anthicyanin content, with a view to substantiated health claims.
As for the office arrangement in Tokyo, HML has said that it believes sharing with other New Zealand companies will "assist in addressing the market issues and changing distribution requirements".
The new beachhead has in fact been operational since January, but the official opening took place at the end of April.
Opening the centre Jim Sutton, associate minister for trade negotiations, said that Japan is New Zealand's third largest trading market.
"This centre reinforces the government's commitment to working in and with Japan… The New Zealand government believes there is much we can do to deepen our economic partnership."
It is located at the New Zealand Business Centre new Shiba-koen, and has room for six companies, as well as a 'hot desk' office for New Zealand companies visiting Japan, a NZTE satellite office, meeting rooms and communication facilities.
Others New Zealand beachheads exist in the UK, US, Singapore and Dubai.