Daimaru Matsuzakaya runs its touring gourmet fair at Matsuzakaya Shizuoka, with two first-time vendors
J. Front Retailing's Daimaru Matsuzakaya chain is running a seven-day 'National Gourmet Fair' on Matsuzakaya Shizuoka's eighth floor from October 28, bringing in food vendors from Hokkaido to Okinawa and giving two brands their first appearance at the store -- ordinary but genuine department-store floor programming.
Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores will run its touring National Gourmet Fair (Zenkoku Gourmet Haku) at Matsuzakaya Shizuoka from October 28 to November 3, a seven-day run in the eighth-floor event hall, the J. Front Retailing chain said. The fair gathers food vendors the company describes as coming from across Japan, "from Hokkaido to Okinawa."
Among the named vendors are Osaka's 551 Horai and Montebranco, Nagano's Shinshu Sato no Kuri Koubou, Miyagi's Rikyu, Yamagata's Takahashi Beef Farm, Fukuoka's Hakata Houhoutei and Aichi's Ganso Tebasaki Karaage Fuuraibou, the company said. Two brands are making their first appearance at Matsuzakaya Shizuoka: Kanagawa apple-pie specialist IGATTI and Ehime fish-cake maker Tanaka Kamaboko Honten. Osaka's Tamade Kimuraya will deliver its goods to the floor after the fair's opening each day, Daimaru Matsuzakaya said, rather than having them ready from the doors.
A regional gourmet fair with first-time vendors is the kind of recurring, low-risk event that keeps a department store's food hall turning over without the cost or commitment of a permanent new tenant -- a lever Japan's chains lean on hardest outside Tokyo and Osaka, where a flagship renovation or a headline luxury opening is rarely on the table. For a mid-sized regional store like Matsuzakaya Shizuoka, giving two outside brands their first shelf space here is as close as the format gets to a new-tenant decision.