Starbucks teams up with Japanese shochu brewery for a whole new coffee experience

The only Starbucks in the world to be powered by sweet potatoes.

Starbucks is famous for setting up branches with design features that pay homage to the traditions of the local community, but now there’s a branch that’ll outshine them all, because it’s a huge complex that’s being built in conjunction with a local Japanese brewery.

The new facility sees Starbucks teaming up with Kirishima Shuzo in Miyakonojo City, Miyazaki Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. This region is famous for both sweet potatoes and shochu, a distilled spirit that’s commonly made with the starchy vegetable, and Kirishima Shuzo has been producing shochu in the area since 1916. 

Both Starbucks and Kirishima Shuzo share “common goals of bringing positive changes to society by cherishing people, the planet, and the community”, and the brewery already has a proven track record of following through on its promises, most notably by generating biogas and electricity from shochu lees and potato scraps produced during the brewing process.

▼ Kirishima Shuzo also opened a facility called “Potato Terrace”, where seedlings are grown to combat diseases that previously reduced yield for local farmers.

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芋焼酎に欠かせないさつまいもの成長を追う！#霧島酒造さつまいも日記
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10月〜12月
今年9月に稼働した霧島酒造の新施設 #イモテラス

ここで大切に育てた健全なさつまいもの親苗を、いよいよ生産農家さんのもとへお届けします！

元気なさつまいもがたくさん育ちますように pic.twitter.com/hmoK6lIisK

— 霧島酒造【公式】 (@kirishimashuzo) November 24, 2023

The new venture between Starbucks and Kirishima Shuzo aims to use this sweet potato power to entirely run their joint facility, making it the only Starbucks in the world to be run by sweet potatoes. That’s not the only environmentally friendly initiative planned for the site, as it will use thermal discharge from the distillation process for heating in winter, and increase steps towards self sufficiency by using food waste to fertilise the crops for coffee and shochu production.

The complex will be located on a site overlooking Mt Kirishima and the Okimizu River, and will house a Starbucks store with a drive-thru, a store managed by Kirishima Shuzo, and a botanical garden which will be visible from both stores, to give customers a sense of being one with nature, whether they’re shopping or relaxing with a coffee.

Starbucks is developing the design and construction of this store under the “Greener Stores Framework”, an international certification jointly formulated by the chain and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that reduces waste, water use, and CO2 emissions.

This is the first time for both companies to work together from the initial concept stages of a build, and construction of the facility is set to start in autumn this year, with the grand opening scheduled for spring 2026.

▼ The new facility will be located next door to the local Kirishima Shuzo headquarters.

▼ While the site today is a patch of grass behind this fence, it will be totally transformed in a couple of years’ time.

Both Starbucks and Kirishima Shuzo say they look forward to “adding colour to the daily lives of customers” with this new facility, and they aim to collaborate on crossover promotions to showcase the “charms” of each company in future.

Source, images: Press release
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