USDBC Japan Gets Creative with New Social Media influencer Campaign

Unlike many of our other export markets, the ongoing pandemic has had a negative impact on U.S. dry bean exports to Japan. U.S. dry beans are used primarily as a paste for sweets in Japan. Most of these sweets are sold through the hotel and retail industry which have both seen significant decreases in sales with very few visitors to Japan during the pandemic. As a result exports of U.S. dry beans to Japan have decreased. USDBC Japan created a new campaign to promote the use of U.S. dry beans and garbanzos in healthy meals and not just sweets in order to create new paths to increased consumption. This type of promotional activity had been planned for some time but Covid helped move up the timeline.

Over the last months, USDBC Japan held a healthy cooking class with dry beans featuring Dark Red Kidney Beans and Garbanzos. The initial class was held by a leading Japanese food influencer and featured three different recipes with DRKs and garbanzos. The Class was live-streamed on Instagram and then archived and received over 100,000 views. As this campaign was successful and interest was high, USDBC Japan has designed twelve short cooking demos by Japanese food influencers, all posted on their Instagram pages. Each influencer features a healthy recipe with different kinds of U.S. dry beans showcasing the ingredients. This has continued to generate hundreds of thousands of views and likes, driving more interest in U.S. dry bean consumption in salads and healthy meals. It’s still too early to determine impact but interest has been extremely high and we feel this is a great approach to diversifying U.S. dry bean use in Japan and driving up consumption. We will continue with the program and well as some additional social media in 2022.