Asahi Shuzo Co., a major Japanese sake firm known for its signature product Dassai, will begin brewing at a plant in New York next spring in a bid to seek consumers in the already crowded United States market.
As the first major Japanese company to set up a sake production facility on the U.S. east coast, Asahi Shuzo is looking to promote sake as a go-to beverage served not only with Japanese foods but a variety of global cuisines.
The company's CEO Kazuhiro Sakurai said its new ¥7 billion ($53 million) facility in Hyde Park, over 100 kilometers north of Manhattan, should be an outpost for his bid to develop new markets in the United States.