The journey from Bulgaria through East Asia, the making of the yogurt culture of Japan
How did yogurt evolve from being an item that was foreign to the Japanese and a food that was thought to be unpalatable or even unpalatable 35 years ago to becoming an everyday necessity and symbol of well-being and health?
A new superfood
This was the reason behind the research I conducted between 2007 and 2012, where I analyzed dairy producers as well as consumers (available here in English as well as translated into Japanese). I tracked this product through time and space all the way all the way from Bulgaria to Japan and watched it change.
I asked the audience: What are you actually eating when you drink yogurt? Are you eating a specific bacteria, a trend, or an ingredient that boosts your health?
The yogurt’s current popularity as a health food in Japan in the sense of being validated and backed by evidence-based research was crafted by a sophisticated marketing campaign that attracted consumers to this product that is not a traditional one through mythologist-branded branding.
Meiji’s commercials for yogurt extol the Bulgarian roots of the product and present the Eastern European country as the holy home of yogurt. In Bulgaria, they inform consumers dairy production is a centuries-old tradition. In addition, “the wind is different, the water is different, the light is different.”
Bulgaria is the place of birth for Japanese yogurt.
What was the trigger for this Japanese Meiji Bulgaria Yogurt Company with a 43 percent market share and 98.9 percent brand awareness to make the decision
The search for longevity
Meiji began thinking about how to make Bulgarian-styled yogurt to be sold in Japan. Meiji started to think about ways to develop Bulgarian-style yogurt for the Japanese marketplace in the latter half of the 1960s.
In the past, the only type of yogurt that was available in Japan was sweetened, heated-treated fermented milk with a jelly-like taste. There were brands like Meiji honey-based yogurt, Snow brands of yogurt, and the Morinaga brand, which were available in small jars weighing 80 grams. They were served as snacks or desserts, as per Meiji’s history as a company.
A sweet Morinaga yogurt was popular during the 60s. Morinaga Milk
Plain yogurt containing living lactobacillus bulgaricus is consumed widely in Bulgaria. There was no such thing. One of Meiji’s Bulgaria yogurt projects told me about his memories of the shock of tasting the plain yogurt served in the Bulgarian pavilion at the 1970 World Fair in Osaka. It was bizarre, according to him, and shockingly tart.
However, plain yogurt also had an enticing feature that was the promise of greater longevity. At the beginning of the 20th century, Nobel Prize-winning Russian science researcher Elie Metchnikoff (1845-1916) developed the concept that aging is caused by harmful bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. The lactic acid bacteria was identified by Metchnikoff as a source of neutralization of the toxins in the body and slowing down the process of aging.
Metchnikoff praised the unbeatable efficacy of lactobacillus bulgaricus extracted from homemade Bulgarian yogurt to accomplish this job and advised to consume it throughout the day.
Metchnikoff feeds his good bacteria to older. Revue
This myth is still prevalent even today. While conducting fieldwork in Bulgaria, I was told the same story over and over in the past: how powerful this local bacteria was and how it created delicious and nutritious yogurt.
A woman of old age said that her daughter’s recovery from breast cancer led to homemade goat milk yogurt.
