The story behind the name SHUKA/種菓

Thank you very much for visiting SHUKA. My name is Takeshi Kondo, and I am the representative of the company.



I am the fourth-generation owner of "Torokuya," an amanatto specialty shop founded in Kyoto in 1926.

"Have you eaten amanatto recently?"

I suspect very few people would answer "yes."

Like many traditional industries, the amanatto business is a declining trade with many shops closing one after another.



To be honest, I did not like being an amanatto maker. I thought it was an old-fashioned profession.

I loved living things and studied microorganisms through graduate school. Perhaps I longed for the cutting-edge world of research, which in a sense was the polar opposite of the family business.

However, while helping out with the family business during my job search, I realized that it was amanatto that had allowed me to pursue the research I loved. Deciding to repay that debt, I made the choice to take over the family business at 23.

I then spent time learning at Taneya, a long-established confectionery shop in Shiga, before officially joining the family business at 26.

Even so, I struggled for a time, feeling insecure about the declining amanatto industry and seeing only the shortcomings of my family business compared to the large corporation I had worked at before.




Still, I held firmly to the belief that "if I am going to commit my one life to something, I want to do work that is meaningful enough to deserve it."

I want to make the profession of an amanatto maker something that people aspire to be. I want to bring joy to many people through amanatto.

Amanatto is a Japanese confection made by sugar-preserving beans; because it uses beans, it represents a food culture unique to Japan. In other words, I believe it is a cultural asset and a treasure of Japan.

With the vision of "making amanatto a food culture the world can be proud of," I launched "SHUKA" in 2022—an old yet new confectionery brand that offers a modern interpretation of amanatto.

Through the experience of eating seeds, we aim to convey and enhance the value of "seeds"—the source of all food—by sharing their intrigue, wonder, and beauty.

Beans are also seeds, and I believe that by enhancing the value of seeds, we will eventually enhance the global value of wagashi (Japanese confections) and Japanese food culture as a whole.

P.S.