Buckeye Begins Trade With Japan

Stuffing an ocean container with bunny-shaped pasta and beer-bread mixes, Buckeye Beans & Herbs on Friday launched its first serious shipment of specialty food to Japan.

The 20-foot container left Buckeye’s loading dock in North Spokane nearly two years after the company first pitched its products to Japanese trade officials.

The container, which is earmarked for Osaka, holds $18,000 in Buckeye processed food, but will sell for two to three times that amount at such prominent outlets as Sogo department store and Kino Kuniya specialty food store.

“The Japanese love cute things. Cute sells and our products are cute,” said Laura Mathisen, a food and export consultant to Buckeye. “The potential there is tremendous.”

The Japan deal pales compared with Buckeye’s 1994 domestic sales of $6 million. But Mathisen said the company is optimistic that Japanese consumers will be attracted by Buckeye’s unique product line and humorous labels and begin buying more.

The shipment included pasta stamped in the shape of bunnies, footballs, baseballs, bicycles and the sun.

In addition, mixes for making Buckeye cornbread, beer bread and organic barley, lentil, bean and pea soup also will cross the Pacific Ocean.

Buckeye introduced its product line in 1993 to a trade team visiting the Northwest from the Japanese External Trade Organization. The team returned with samples from seven U.S. companies to display at an Osaka food show.

Buckeye was the only Spokane company to strike a deal with a Japanese trading company. Charm Corp. in Osaka has agreed to distribute the Buckeye products, which are plastered with both U.S. and Japanese labels.

“It takes a long time to develop a relationship, but once established, you usually can count on it to last,” said Mathisen.

Mathisen said Buckeye also is working on a deal to export products to Australia.