Learning about overseas perspectives to facilitate inbound consumption and provision of ingredients to Japanese restaurant chains overseas

Q.Why did your company decide to take on interns? What did you aim to achieve?

Our company processes and sells Kujo spring onions produced by farmers in Kyoto, which is a popular destination of international tourists, especially those from Southeast Asia. We were able to accept an intern from Indonesia this time. We wanted to investigate the possibilities of promoting ingredients and developing menus for inbound consumption, as well as of the provision of ingredients for Japanese restaurant chains overseas in the future.
When we saw her profile in advance, we also considered her management potential in a food factory (HACCAP). In order to promote the current business forward, we accepted her for her ability to see things from a perspective different from us in Japan and in expectation of vitalizing the workplace and awareness raising among our employees.

We had the intern to see the processes from field preparation to harvesting and processing, and had her learn about hygiene and quality control in those processes.

Q.What kind of internship did you run? What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve them?

Because we handle Kujo spring onions from Kyoto, we informed her about the value, tradition and history of the brand and the actual Japanese market. We went shopping together to see how products are sold and ingredients are used in restaurants. Then we went to a place of cultivation of the ingredients to see how fields were prepared and crops were harvested and to interview farmers in person. We had her participate in the process of processing ingredients into products, and experience processing techniques, machine operation and quality checks. We were also able to convey our ideal business stance to her and directly heard problems and other things she noticed through the experience of hygiene and risk control essential for food manufacturing. In the company, two or three people including her acted together and had dinner a couple of times a week and she talked about her country, family, cooking and how she spent her holidays. She prepared ingredients and cooked Indonesian dishes for us. On holidays, employees went to tourist spots in Kyoto with her and took her to places she wanted to go. We wanted her to learn as much as possible and know the joy of working and living in Japan within the one-month schedule.

We renewed our recognition of the importance of exchanging opinions and having thorough discussions to understand each other instead of working based on nonverbal consent.

Q.Comparing before and after the internship, what effects did it have on you, your employees, or your organization?

By accepting our first intern, we were able to experience the perspective of a non-Japanese without being enslaved by Japanese customs. It was very refreshing and reminded us of many things. For example, the intern had a high level of conscientiousness. By following rules and manuals, and not ignoring mistakes, she was a good influence on our employees. She had an excellent sense of responsibility and awareness toward work, and we focused our efforts on finding and drawing the best out of her. Workers who had no experience in working with non-Japanese were relaxed by her friendliness and language ability, which made team efforts smooth and helped us find the possibility of working with non-Japanese. It was very stimulating that she expressed her feelings and thoughts frankly without mincing her words and continued discussions until reaching an understanding. It was refreshing as it was not possible in our work environment in the past. Making us notice what we were missing was another effect of the internship. In response to her hope to work in Japan that she expressed a week before she went home, we are preparing for her acquisition of status of residence. This result was also beneficial for both sides.