Hokkaido celebrated with a cake

Text by: Charlotte Garlaschelli
Hokkaido is Japan’s northernmost island. It is located only a few steps away from the Russian oblast’ of Sachalin and Kushiro, which lies in the eastern part, facing the Pacific ocean.
The island is fresh and very cold in winter because of frequently blowing Siberian winds. The Japanese people love to go there in summer when it’s too hot in other parts of the country. You also go skiing there, and to buy the local delicacies. The island has always maintained its natural characteristics and it is now scattered with small and medium-sized businesses. Forests and volcanoes line up in a scenographic background of lands cultivated for Japan’s most important types of production: agriculture, livestock and fishing. In Japan there is a centuries-old specialised tradition of local products. Small artisans hand down through generations tools and secrets of knowledge for the manufacture of a single good. Thus villages specialise and form manufacturing districts. In particular, Kushiro is specialised in the production of cheese. This is where Flanders Co. Ltd, specialising in confectionery production, has its headquarters. A special cake was created with the support of a crowd funding and finan sense for the economic development.

It is a cheese cake, but, above all, it is a winter landscape, which recalls and synthesises all the qualities of this place.  The first product created by Flanders is a proper story: a dark box encloses Hokkaido’s snowy landscape. The snow is actually refined powdered sugar and the trees can be used as cocktail sticks. The cake’s design contains another feature of this landscape, that is the traditional technique of preservation of fruit and vegetables, which, apparently, increases the intensity of sweet flavours.
The project belongs to the most famous design studio in the world, Nendo, which never misses a chance to skilfully experiment with different concepts.