Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc. and Japan Tequila Association to jointly develop beverage menus　　　New proposal for mixed beverages using “The Tansan Strong” to be made from April

News Release

April 9, 2018

Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc.

Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc. and Japan Tequila Association to jointly develop beverage menus

New proposal for mixed beverages using “The Tansan Strong” to be made from April

New initiative for the “Beverage Management”* Program designed for restaurant customers

Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc. (“CCBJI”, Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director and President: Tamio Yoshimatsu) will jointly develop beverage menus with Japan Tequila Association and start making proposals to restaurant customers in Chubu and Kansai regions as part of promotion of its “Beverage Management”* Program starting from Monday April 9.
The recent environment surrounding management of restaurants in Japan is becoming more and more complex, due to the surge in food material and transportation cost and regarding the issue of ensuring human resources, etc.  Additionally, as the awareness and needs by the consumers regarding eating out continues to change, ensuring differentiation with other restaurants and improving profit ratio are the common issues among many of the restaurant managers.
Due to such background, CCBJI will work upon development and making of proposals for mixed beverage menus using the strong SSD water “The Tanasan Strong”, which has been newly released this spring and is gaining high popularity among the consumers, in order to provide further support for the restaurant customers.
We would appreciate it if media coverage is made regarding this matter.

*A program where CCBJI provides support for its restaurant customers to create profit via making proposals and ensuring of popularity for various different mixed beverages utilizing Coca-Cola’s soft drink products.

◆Background for the joint development of beverage menus with Japan Tequila Association

Amount of tequila being used is increasing significantly due to it being viewed as new liquor basis for high-ball menus, and therefore CCBJI has come to pay attention to it.

◆Overview of the specific initiative jointly implemented with Japan Tequila Association

Coca-Cola’s new product “The Tansan Strong” has been highly evaluated by President Hayashi of Japan Tequila Association, who evaluated it by saying, “The Tansan Strong further leverages tequila”, and “it further promotes the taste of agave”, which has led onto the joint development of tequila cocktail recipes which use “The Tansan Strong”.  Japan Tequila Association will participate in the joint development of the tequila cocktail recipes while also being responsible for the supervision of such development activities, whereas CCBJI will make proposals to restaurant customers to use such jointly developed recipes, and therefore will work upon making tasty cocktail menus popular among the consumers.

＜Example menus＞

◆Deployment target: Targeting to deploy the initiative onto 2,500 outlets in Chubu and Kansai region

◆Comment by President Hayashi of Japan Tequila Association

“Tequila” is a liquor originally produced in Mexico, and is currently its sales is increasing across the world.
Surprisingly, local people in Mexico prefer to drink tequila by mixing it with various different beverages rather than drinking it straight.  Tequila is made from agave, which has delicate and subtle sweet taste, whereas it will be required that it be mixed with some beverage that can fully leverage this sweet taste.
I was surprised to find out that “The Tansan Strong” which has been proposed by CCBJI has fine bubbles that will maximize the unique sweet taste of tequila’s like no other beverage product.  It enables us to clearly see the merit of using tequila as the base for the beverage menu.

◆Comment by Koichi Inoue, Head of Sakaya Central Japan/Kansai Sales Department

This will be our first collaborative initiative with Japan Tequila Association.  Additionally to the merit of the recipe being highly easy to prepare, the menu will enable us to fully enjoy the strong, piercing-like stimulus taste of the bubbles of “The Tansan Strong” which was released on Mar. 26, making it a perfect match between tequila”.  We will first make proposals mainly to our restaurant customers in Chubu and Kansai regions so that the recipes will be included into their regular menu, and then hope to expand our initiative onto a nationwide scale.

【Overview of Japan Tequila Association】　　http://www.tequila.jp.net/index.html

Established in July 2008.  The Association is holding various events on a monthly basis so that there will be happy encounters and so that socialization can be deepened via tequila, and is also holding tasting seminars at various locations across Japan.   Starting from Jan. 2011, it has been holding “Tequila Sommelier Seminar” for those who wish to learn much more deeply about tequila on a regular basis, and then started holding “Tequila Maestro Seminar” starting from July. 2013, and then also started holding “Grand Maestro de Tequila Seminar” which is held for those who wish to pursue further professional knowledge regarding tequila.  Participants for tequila seminars such as those held at the Embassy of Mexico and FOODEX has exceeded 10,000 people.  In 2011, it has been awarded with T Award by CRT (Consejo Regulador del Tequila A.C. (Tequila Management and Evaluation Committee) for the first time in Japan.

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