A Pickle Giant's 'Fermentation Theme Park': Trial and Error, From Café to Bakery
- A complex tourism facility, 'OH!!!', opened at Nonin-ji temple in Hanno, Saitama.
- Pickle giant Pickles proposes new value through fermented food, moving into unfamiliar dining and retail.
- The journey was full of setbacks — even converting a café into a bakery while reading customer response.
- For readers in experience tourism or regional revitalization, it's a real case of manufacturing turning to the experience economy.
In Hanno, Saitama, a complex tourism facility called 'OH!!!' has opened at Nonin-ji temple — launched not by a restaurant group but by pickle giant Pickles. It aims to propose new value through fermented food, stepping from manufacturing into dining and retail it had never done. The path was rough: the report describes repeated failures, struggle, and days of adjusting to customer response — it even turned a café into a bakery.
Why should Taiwanese readers in tourism or regional revitalization care? It's a living case of manufacturing pivoting to the experience economy, honestly showing its trial and error. A maker's strength is product and supply, but the rhythm of serving end customers is a different skill. Converting the café into a bakery is an admission that the first version guessed wrong — and a willingness to change, which often matters more than a flawless initial plan.
Two takeaways. First, fermented food has been repackaged in Japan as health and craft value, ideal for experience tourism — Taiwan's soy sauce, fermented tofu and tea have the same room. Second, a regional facility survives not by a busy opening but by whether it keeps adjusting to customers. Watch not the opening crowds at 'OH!!!' but whether it still changes a year on.