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Japan's "Mushroom Meisters"
A Business Promotion Model
Norio Maezawa, Japan Mushroom Meister Association, Chairman. Originally published in Volume 29(1) pg 22-29, 2021, Mushroom Science and Biotechnology, by the Japanese Society of Mushroom Science and Biotechnology. (日本きのこ学会誌、Vol 29(1) 22-29, 2021.きのこ学会)

1. Introduction
In 1970, Japan produced 123,000 tonnes of edible mushrooms. Forty years later in 2010, this figure rose to 467,000 tonnes before falling in the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, after which it leveled off and is now on a slow road to recovery (Table 1).

For over 40 years I have been involved in the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) businesses and activities spanning a gamut of roles from employee at JA Nakano City, Nagano in 1969 to executive director of economic affairs. JA Nakano City was born in 1964 from the consolidation of nine cooperatives in the city and was a major JA at the time. Meanwhile, local growers had been producing enoki since 1955, but the creation of the centralized JA Nakano City branch spurned them to merge and form the Nakano City JA Enoki Production Committee and thus start to systematically produce and market their mushrooms.

When I joined the organisation, the enoki production and sales business was in full throttle. So my main focus throughout my time at JA was very much the production and marketing of mushrooms as well as other mushroom-related business such as loan consultations and the supply of cultivation materials.
In 1973, the Enoki Production Committee in Nakano City had, at its peak, 1,300 growing facilities of which 250 were facilities with year-round air-conditioning, and the rest were seasonal growing centres that relied only on the natural cold of winter. Japan's total enoki production was about 20,000 tonnes. At the time, I was thick in consultations for capital investment loans. Then, from 1983, I headed the marketing of those mushrooms, managing wholesale companies, intermediate wholesalers, and retailers, and also negotiating with government to create a production and marketing environment. Around 1985, though, we were seeing an oversupply of mushrooms in Japan, so I proposed the idea of exporting enoki and looked for distribution channels to the US.

Before the oversupply, I was acutely aware that we had to routinely work hard to increase consumption so during this time, I had had enough of the violent fluctuations in the supply and demand of edible mushrooms and their market prices. (Table 2). Then, for 11 years from 1988, as part of a JA department I oversaw the frontline of consumption in the retail store domain. This time, too, I leveraged possible ideas such as mushroom marketing and store events, and worked to promote their consumption and sales. Oranche, an agricultural produce centre in Nakano City, has been operating as a farmers' market, selling mushrooms and fruit directly to the public year-round since 1996.

After taking on the portfolio for local agricultural development as a director in 2004, I hammered out drastic development measures with two pillars I had had in mind: mushrooms and horticulture. That was the Nakano City Local Agricultural Revitalisation 20 Billion Yen Target Plan. It was a plan to somehow get the sales volume, which had fallen from a peak of 23 billion yen in 1991 to 15.8 billion yen in 2003, to trend upwards on a V-shaped recovery trajectory.

The V-shaped recovery revitalization plan was based on strengthening the production foundation of mushrooms and horticulture and increasing their sales. The specific plan for that revitalization was the establishment of production centres, implementing an enoki liquid spawn production system, systematically reinforcing the production foundation of king oyster mushrooms, and introducing new grape varieties and a more diverse product line (Figure 1).
In this review, I will detail the process in which I tackled the question of how to promote mushrooms and then resolve and overcome future challenges, using a plan with a mushroom certification business as its single pillar.
2. A look behind the idea of a “meister”, or mushroom evangelist, certification
(1) The balance between the production and consumption of edible mushrooms is the barometer for change in wholesale prices
In 1970, Japan's mushroom production mostly consisted of log-grown shiitake. The bottle cultivation style of enoki shaped the typical cultivation facility, producing a typical yield of about 10,000 tonnes. Cultivation was still only small-scale and limited to family farms, but quality stabilised thanks to air-conditioning, which allowed for a controlled environment. So when market demand rose, cultivation instantly transformed into year-round factory production and a corporate management style simultaneously developed with advances in mechanisation and technology. When supply outpaced demand due to an increase in production efficiency, oversupply prompted a fall in wholesale prices, causing the wholesale price of enoki to fall year upon year. Meanwhile, in the retail realm, the cost of enoki meant it could be sold for one coin. Because enoki was an efficient product with a constant yield and dependable quality, producers could reliably produce yields to meet the peak demand period starting in autumn, when demand was up to three times greater than during the summer months.

Managing mushroom production is a matter of balance, where improving the facility operation rate and securing labour while also cutting costs makes for a sustainable operation and stable year-round production. However, with a three-fold difference between the peak and low demand periods, the unquestionable value of enoki gets lost. Enoki inherently has extraordinary value. This can be seen from the results of studies on anti-cancer effects started in the 1970s at the National Cancer Center Japan and conducted by doctors at the Hokushin General Hospital in Nagano Prefecture. The inevitable challenge became the question of how to get as many consumers as possible to understand that intrinsic appeal of mushrooms and avoid the unnecessary drop in the value of enoki.
(2) What measures are needed to promote edible mushrooms and achieve adequate per capita consumption?
According to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare consumption surveys, Japanese have been consuming about 16g of mushrooms a day per person since 2010. Meanwhile, vegetable consumption is around 280g, falling short of the Health Japan 21 target of 350g (Table 3). These numbers have remained largely unchanged. It is thought that virtually all mushrooms produced are being consumed thanks to the efforts by the JA Group and production companies in utilising various mediums and tools to promote mushroom consumption. Nevertheless, 16g of mushrooms a day is still not enough to address the nation's health challenges given that mushroom researchers advocate at least 50g a day.

So we need to continue the usual placement of mushroom recipes on SNS and TV and in magazines and retailers. We also thought that having specialists who have studied and are familiar with mushrooms share information directly would be crucial in getting mushrooms to appear more regularly on tables around Japan.

(3) "Mycophagism" is the bible for the mushroom consumption movement
Rokuya Imazeki proposed mycophagism and promoted it in his book Mori no Seimeigaku (Forest biology). With cancer rates on the rise, he claimed there was a natural ecological rationale for eating fungi food for human health. Following this theory, Shinsaku Kawachi, Professor of the University of Miyazaki Faculty of Agriculture, advocated becoming mycophagists instead of vegetarians. Thus we decided to use mycophagism, started by Rokuya Imazeki, in the original sense for the practical education of Shinsaku Kawachi's mycophagists.
(4) Cue the birth of Mushroom Meisters
In August 2006, the idea of creating a regional certification was discussed at the Tourism Industry Committee, a specialist committee of the Vocational Training Association for Junior and Senior High Schools in Nakano City, Nagano. It was the first time I attended the meeting as a member and I promptly joined in the discussion. As I had been exploring the introduction of a mushroom sommelier system for some time, I immediately put my suggestion on the table.

Nagano is known for being an agricultural prefecture and Northern Nagano produces an outstanding quantity of mushrooms and is literally the cradle of Japanese mushroom production, so as a local specialty mushrooms were a resource with a natural strength that could even be used in the tourism industry. Training people who used them was a great initiative that could help spread passion for mushrooms and contribute to the promotion of the industry and local tourism, and the suggestion won unanimous support at the meeting. A preparatory committee of six, including myself, specialist subcommittee officers and a secretary, was established at the meeting. This preparatory committee spent three months drafting a plan and in November a founding study group was established. It was a specialist group of 19 with 15 members from the private sector and four from government.

During those discussions, the initial idea of “sommelier” changed to “meister.” The reason for this was because the term sommelier is an official national certification in France for wine professionals, which could present problems were we to use it in a different context. I was appointed chief secretary of this study group, which was made up of four committees: the strategy committee, the fundamental mushroom knowledge committee, the mushroom and health committee, and the mushroom and cooking and processing committee. The study group fumbled through preparing a curriculum, choosing lecturers, setting the final exam, creating certification procedures, developing a textbook, and reviewing the test questions and course fee. Thanks to the tireless deliberation of the committee members, the overall system was established the following year in June 2007. The task was accomplished in just six quick months. The only driving force behind this was the desire to quickly produce the first generation of Mushroom Meisters and to be at the forefront in developing activities to promote the appeal of mushrooms.
The first version of the introductory course, the Basic Meister Course, started on August 28. Because of the publicity buzz, the 57 students taking the course were not only producers and JA staff, but people from a range of sectors including restaurants, the processing industry, and government.

(5) Reasons for taking the course in recent years and evaluation of the Mushroom Meister qualification
The first time the course was held, the main reason for attending was because the students were sent by work. In our running survey from 2012 to 2020 the number one reason was (2) because they thought they could use it in their own business or at work, followed by (3) because they were interested in mushrooms and wanted to learn from specialists. Further, (4) wanting a qualification and (5) health concerns together also made up for about 20% of the answers. These results and student trends suggest that an increasingly higher social value is being placed on the Mushroom Meister Certification Course and qualification
3. The operational structure of the Nagano Mushroom Meister Association
The Nagano Mushroom Meister Association was founded in June 2010. The Mushroom Meister certification business had already started in 2007 and had operated as an accreditation council, which is a voluntary organisation, until it was established as a corporate association. The constituent members were the Vocational Training Association for Junior and Senior High Schools, JA Nakano City, JA Shiga Kogen, the Shinshu Nakano Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Yamanouchi Commerce and Industry Association. And me as the chief secretary. The reason it shifted from a voluntary to a corporate organisation three years after its establishment was because a socially prestigious qualification like Mushroom Meister can authenticate the social prestige of its qualification when accredited by a legal entity.

There were four founding members when the association was established and myself the representative founder. Later, in May 2012, two years after this Nagano Mushroom Meister Association was founded, it was renamed with "Japan" replacing "Nagano".

Once the Nagano Mushroom Meister Association had recruited regular and supporting members following its establishment and registration, and secured the target number of members, it held its inaugural meeting. The meeting took place on 29 September 2010. Since then, I have served as representative director and director . At present, the board is made up of six directors and one auditor, and generally meets once a month.

The role of our association is to provide people involved in the cultivation, distribution and sale of mushrooms, those who cook and all who are interested in mushrooms and health with opportunities to learn about mushrooms, their nutrition and functions, and how to harness their characteristics in cooking. It also carries out projects related to the training of personnel who share the appeal of mushrooms and other factual information with the wider population while promoting mushroom-related industries and healthy lifestyles to the general public. The association has six specific activities.

(1) Mushroom Meister certification
(2) Supporting Mushroom Meisters
(3) Increasing mushroom demand and consumption
(4) Promoting mushroom dishes and dietary education
(5) Disseminating information about mushrooms
(6) Forming partnerships with the health industry

Annual membership for regular members, consisting of companies and individuals, is 50,000 yen (equivalent to approximately US$382) per member, and for supporting members it is 10,000 yen (approximately US$76), which goes towards the running of the association. There is no joining fee. The association's operating income comes from the Mushroom Meister courses and subscription fees for its comprehensive mushroom magazine Quarterly Kinoko, but balancing the books every year is tight and its financial base is still fragile, so the challenge now is to increase the number of subscribers and boost revenue.
4. What is a "Mushroom Meister"?
As I said earlier in section 2, I had an increasing desire to somehow create a stable and rising trend in the mushroom consumption landscape where prices unexpectedly drop due to fluctuations in supply and demand. I thought it crucial to educate people who would effectively share information on mushrooms. That is why I was confident that a socially reliable certification system on mushrooms was just the tool to do this. Consequently, a Mushroom Meister is someone who is properly educated on the merits of mushrooms, regularly enjoys eating them, promotes their benefits to others, demonstrates how to eat them, and through various activities encourages the use of mushrooms and mushrooms products. Put simply, I want to call them mushroom evangelists.
This Mushroom Meister certification business has been backed by the Forestry Agency and the Nagano Prefectural Government since 2014. To this day, they continue to lend their support because we report the results of the project each year and the qualified Mushroom Meisters we send out into society are valued for their activities in their respective communities and workplaces.

5. About the Mushroom Meister courses
The Mushroom Meister courses form a three-step system with each course completed in order. The Introductory Course, Exploratory Course and Specialty Course respectively certify Basic Mushroom Meisters, Mushroom Meisters and Special Mushroom Meisters.
Let me elaborate on each one.

(1) Introductory Course: Basic Mushroom Meister certification course
This is the starting course for anyone interested in mushrooms. It teaches fundamental knowledge about mushrooms with the aim of enabling students to practically incorporate and enjoy this knowledge in their everyday lives.

The curriculum is made up of the following topics.
- About Mushroom Meisters
- Dietary health
- General nutrition
- General physiological characteristics of mushrooms
- The life cycle of and production of mushrooms
- History of mushroom production
- Mushroom varieties and how to identify them
- Mushroom distribution and sales

These topics are covered over the two-day course with eight lecturers talking about their areas of specialisation.
Students can access the lectures in one of two ways: by regular course where students hear the lecturers speak in person or by correspondence course where the lectures are recorded onto DVD. The exam is made up of 100 multiple choice questions with three answer options and is held in eleven locations in Hokkaido, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka as well as in Nakano City and Ina City in Nagano. Students need to get at least 70% of the questions correct to become certified Basic Mushroom Meisters.
(2) Exploratory Course: Mushroom Meister certification course
This course can be taken by Basic Mushroom Meisters. Here, Mushroom Meisters delve deeper into mushroom knowledge, their functions, and cooking methods in order to be able to convey the merits of mushrooms. This course has additional subjects that develop communication skills in particular and is only available by correspondence.

The curriculum is made up of the following topics.
- Mushroom physiology and ecology
- The benefits of wild mushrooms
- Mushroom genetics and breeding
- Detailed physiological characteristics of mushrooms
- Introduction to mushroom processing
- Message from sommeliers
- Two days of lectures, final exam, and practicum:
- Mushroom culinary science (practicum)
- Mushroom culinary science (lecture)
- Hospitality and presentation
- New mushroom product development (seminar)
- Hands-on training

The exam is held on day two. There is a written exam and a presentation based on an essay. As with the Basic Mushroom Meister, the written exam consists of 100 multiple choice questions with three answer options, of which students must get at least 70 correct, and give a presentation to become certified.

(3) Specialty Course: Special Mushroom Meister certification course
This course is the final goal and can be taken by Mushroom Meisters. Put simply, this is a mushroom MBA intended for managing a mushroom-based business where students learn basic business management, business administration, and leadership theory, before moving on to a specialised course in production, distribution and marketing; cooking, processing and dietary education; or tourism and other Areas. This course cannot be taken by correspondence. First, students do the five-day certification course in the first half of the year before sitting the written essay-style exam on the final day.. If they pass the exam, they move on to the Specialty Course in the second half of the year. This course has a choice of the three fields mentioned above and once a goal has been set, each student works with a specialist lecturer to set a topic in order to achieve that goal. Under the guidance of the lecturer, the student submits a report and a thesis on the topic plus gives a presentation on the thesis, and is certified only after an assessment by several examiners.

6. The comprehensive mushroom magazine Quarterly
Kinoko, showcasing noteworthy activities of Mushroom Meisters and efforts to boost consumption
(1) A total of 953 Mushroom Meisters are involved in mycophagy practices focused on mushrooms in the community, at work, at events and at home. The Quarterly Kinoko magazine is a tool to support these initiatives and is published four times a year in spring, summer, autumn and winter.
When the Mushroom Meister certification business started, the free newsletter called Mushroom Meister News was four double-sided A4 pages long. It was a functional newsletter serving as a conduit for information exchange among Mushroom Meisters and the Mushroom Meister certification council. It then became Mycophagist, switching from a free paper to a paid magazine before ultimately transforming into the current Quarterly Kinoko, which now has a circulation of over 1200 copies per issue.
Sharing the latest mushroom-related information, Quarterly Kinoko has a variety of content on, for example, the physiology and ecology of mushrooms, mushrooms as food, meister activities, companies, and processed products. The magazine also highlights mushroom dishes, and occasionally does features on mushroom production, distribution, food and regional promotions. While based on the inherent role of mushrooms, the magazine is dedicated to showing the direction of the mushroom industry and restoring health through a mushroom diet and mycophagy lifestyle, thus contributing to a reduction in medical costs.
(2) There are too many Mushroom Meisters active throughout Japan to list so only a few of the most prominent have been listed on the prior page.
(3) The Nagano Mushroom Festival initiative

The Fukuoka mushroom festival was proposed by mushroom cultivation researcher and developer Tomoko Kawamura and is the original mushroom festival in Japan. This festival was organised and launched by a group of mushroom enthusiasts with Ms. Kawamura at the heart. It was soon followed by the Yokohama Mushroom Festival with Issei Kobayashi as the representative. The festival spore had flown from Hakata in Fukuoka to Minatomirai in Yokohama. The next location was Nagano. I checked with Ms. Kawamura before starting to meticulously plan a festival in Nagano. Based on the common theme of "See, eat, love mushrooms", I reached out to industry stakeholders in Nagano Prefecture: mushroom producers and companies, people who love mushrooms, and JA. The Advertising company Ask Corporation became the representative for the executive committee while I served as secretary and called on stakeholders to unite to make the Nagano Mushroom Festival a success across the entire prefecture. This resulted in the participation of various mushroom-related companies, including industry heavyweight Hokuto, the Nagano branch of the national JA and two northern Nagano JAs, and the resounding success of the first Nagano Mushroom Festival held at Nagano's multipurpose sports arena Big Hat with over 15,000 visitors. It was held at Big Hat three times before being moved to a hotel the following year.

Unfortunately, the 2020 festival was voluntarily postponed due to COVID-19. Instead, 5,000 copies of a special Nagano Mushroom Festival free magazine were printed and placed in major retailers and convenience stores in which the companies slated to exhibit at the festival shared mushroom information, somewhat akin to paper booths. A new location for a mushroom festival was then floated. After Nagano, the spore flew to Osaka and Hiroshima. Fungi friends elsewhere are cultivating the mushroom festival mycelium to fruit at an as-yet undisclosed part of Japan.

7. In closing
I had the honour of receiving the first ever Japanese Society of Mushroom Science & Biotechnology promotion award in 2019. I will summarise whether I did something worthy of the award or whether I was recognized for some practical activity I did.

First, looking over the last 40 years of the Japanese mushroom industry, the surge in production capability and improvement in quality that rapid advances in production technology have enabled is phenomenal. The flip side of this exceptional aspect is also a history that has revealed serious troubles, including increased production costs, an oversupply of mushroom products, and declines that disrupt the wholesale cost price. In this process, I searched for some sort of initiative through which the value of mushrooms could be maintained, and concluded that the best solution was to create mushroom evangelists who could fluently present the benefits of mushrooms to the general public. The Mushroom Meister certification business is becoming something of a status symbol for people as a socially recognised qualification based on the guidance and cooperation of stakeholders while undergoing continuous trial and error. However, the program is in its infancy and it will be a long road until mushroom consumption reaches our target of 50g per person per day. We can only continue to put our best effort forward until that day comes.

Secondly, the mushroom industry is now recognized as being a core facet of regional industrial revitalisation, because it contributes to secondary industries via the mushroom production industry and food industry, as well as stimulating the local economy through employment, maintenance of local foodways, and tourism. While I have played but a small part in promoting the mushroom industry, I could not be happier with the fact that I have been recognised as a trailblazer for my business and activities during my time working at JA and, subsequently, the Japan Mushroom Meister Association.
Acknowledgements
The initiatives in this paper were not the work of myself alone. It is because of the many predecessors involved, those who have shared the joys and sorrows as colleagues, benefactors who gave pep talks and helped us straighten up when faced with difficulties, and everyone who stood with us that I have been able to write about these accomplishments. I am eternally grateful. Special thanks must go to Dr. Tokumitsu Matsui and Dr. Koji Takabatake, the chair and former chair of the Japanese Society of Mushroom Science & Biotechnology respectively, Professor Fumio Eguchi of the Tokyo University of Agriculture, Kazuhiko Masuno of the Nagano Prefecture Forestry Research Center, the Mushroom Meister course lecturers, all the directors and auditors at the Japan Mushroom Meister Association, the association's regular and supporting members, and everyone in the Mushroom Meister Club.

^{This English translation was done for the Japanese Exotic Mushroom Journal, and any errors in terminology, transcription, or in the presentation of the data are the responsibility of the Japanese Exotic Mushroom Journal.}
^{About the Translator: Naomi Roulston has over a decade of experience as a Japanese to English translator and specialises in food, mushrooms, nutrition and lifestyle medicine, and travel and tourism. She has a postgraduate degree in translation, is NAATI-certified, and holds a Kinoko Meister certificate from the Japan Kinoko (mushroom) Meister Association.}

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Japan's "Mushroom Meisters"

A Business Promotion Model