Welcome to Issue #158 of SIN.
We open this issue with some particularly sad news.
By now many of our readers may have heard the news of a brewery worker in Akita Prefecture perishing after falling into a tank of moromi, where there is an intense concentration of carbon dioxide which can quickly prove fatal with seemingly minimal exposure. It was soon announced that the “brewery worker” was in fact Bungo Tanaka, the CEO of BOON and the man behind the revival of a number of breweries across Japan.
The accident occurred at Dainagawa, one of the breweries he was responsible for resurrecting. While the exact details of how Bungo’s death occurred have not been released, nor are they necessarily pertinent, the tragedy further highlights the dangers involved in brewing sake. Many breweries are still functioning in the simplest of structures with health and safety often relegated behind “tradition”, “function” and “cost”. If anything good may come from this accident one might hope it might be more stringent safety implementations in breweries.
Bungo Tanaka, at the relatively tender age of 49, was a trailblazing mover and shaker who “walked the walk” while “talking the talk”. His efforts in turning around Dainagawa, Shiwa Shuzoten (Sisora) and Uozu Shuzo (Honami) were exemplary in demonstrating the potential for reviving struggling businesses in a slowly sinking industry. The very fact that he died while tending a moromi tank in the early hours of the morning was testament to his hands-on approach as a passionate man of sake and not just a financer.
We’ve long followed Tanaka’s efforts and even reached out to him back in 2021 to gain insight into what he was doing and his philosophies behind his business activities.
Allow us to reprint that interview here in case you either missed it or would like a revisit of just what kind of man the sake industry has lost.
SIN offers our sincerest condolences to Bungo’s family, staff, co-workers and all those who will surely miss him.
Rest in Peace Bungo Tanaka.
