For a businesswoman who wanted to support the recovery of the Tohoku region following the tragic 2011 earthquake-tsunami disaster, locally grown camellia plants with strong roots that survived the waves offered a beacon of hope.

Although little known even among Japanese, residents in the Kesen area covering the cities of Rikuzentakata and Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture have traditionally handpicked camellia seeds to extract oil for use in cooking, skin and hair care.

But as camellia oil cannot be mass produced, camellia oil factories in the area had dwindled down to one by the time of the disaster as cheaper cooking oil became widely available.