A small community in Chiba Prefecture, a traditional home to myriad brewed products such as sake and soy sauce, is doing its best to ride the recent wave of interest in fermented foods to make its name.
The "fermentation town" of Kozaki, about 60 kilometers east of Tokyo, has hosted annual festivals each March since 2009 featuring its sake breweries and opened a flagship fermentation store in 2015 to spread the word about the health benefits of fermented foods while hopefully boosting tourism along the way.
The store, part of a roadside rest facility, sells some 500 different fermented foods from across Japan, including miso, fish sauce, dairy products and tea, and offers lessons to promote the "culture of fermentation."