Tackle Trade World - May 2023

The Big Interview
handful of brands. Although, naturally,
as the market developed, so we saw an
increase in the number of brands to service
various new niches.
The much easier access to overseas
production also changed the dynamics of
the market and resulted in the number
of local manufacturers radically reducing.
Another huge difference is the move of the
majority of names to production overseas.
Why have you kept your
production facilities in
Japan even though the
majority of the industry was
moving to cheaper overseas
production?
My passion is manufacturing, that’s why
I always tried to preserve the handmade
aspect of our products, even though
naturally moving production overseas
offers certain advantage on the price.
However, it also brings with it many
compromises and I’m not ready to make
those. It will remain our pride to be a
fusion of Japanese fishing innovation
and handmade tradition. That’s why
we are also proud of our “Japan Brand”
certification by the Japanese government
– the only brand in the fishing industry
with that.
Where do “Made In Japan”
products have an advantage,
do you think?
It’s hard to say, generally, since even
in Japan you can find various levels of
quality, but I would say that the attention
to detail is certainly something which
sets it apart. The level of confidence that
“Made In Japan” brings has been earned
over many decades and has come to
represent reliability.
Why was the Sea Falcon
brand created?
We started as a domestic OEM
manufacturer and have seen the growing
popularity of jigging. Many of our OEM
partners have been in high demand,
not only domestically but also
globally. Many times, the size of the
demand was so high that it surprised
me and opened my eyes to the
potential of the international market.
So can you explain the
international growth of
Sea Falcon?
Our international presence went
through several stages. The first stage
was all about getting the name out there
and increasing the brand awareness. We
have worked very hard on presenting our
products in a number of countries; we have
been regulars at EFTTEX and ICAST
shows but also attended Thai, Korean or
Italian fishing shows, too.
Initially, I was contemplating how to
make our products stand out the most
and came up with the idea for a “rolling
sushi” stand. That has brought us a large
amount of attention and many of the show
organisers came to thank us directly for
such a creative approach to booth design.
We have also focused on bringing and
getting products directly to users and, after
developing the movement in the Florida
area and in Australia, we also organised
tournaments there. With Australia, we
even went a step further and organised a
sales tour around Australian shops, visiting
around 80 in total.
We always tried to be very “hands on”
with Sea Falcon and bring the brand which
we have built with passion over the years to
every market.
So, what’s next for Sea
Falcon?
Now, with the appointment of an
experienced international sales manager
in Martin Bakos, we have started the
second stage of our global strategy and
are much more proactive in approaching
the markets. That does not mean only
establishing a resale point but also
working with distributors together on
finding and developing the most fitting
products. We have also started to focus
more on our social media presence as
Covid-19 made it impossible for us to
travel for so long.
Tetsuo Itou
www. bluing-hearts.com
www.tackletradeworld.com
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