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Hard Facts you need before you start growing Wasabi
Let me give you some hard facts.
- 20,000 plants can be grown on 2000 square metres of land.
- In most climates you will need shelter specifically designed for your weather conditions. We can supply minimum specifications if required for you to get a local cost.
- You will need access to 30kW 3 phase power source. This is normally from the power company. In some cases they may need to run power to your site and install a transformer and power poles. This can be expensive.
- You will need access to clean and tested potable water. We prefer to use rainwater, but initially the system needs to be filled up, and it will be necessary to top up and replace water during the growing period.
- Installing the growing system can be done by yourself or using qualified contractors. These people need to be able to follow instructions and not be prone to make changes because they think we have “done things wrong”.
- All materials and equipment need to meet our stated specifications. Make may vary, but operating specifications cannot.
- All parts of the Wasabia japonica plant can be used and sold.
- The average plant weight is 1000 gms (2.2 lbs) after 18 months.
- Average Growth characteristics
Part of plant | One Year | 18 months | 2 Years | 3 Years |
Rhizome | 50gms | 100 gms | 180 gms | 250 gms |
Leaf, Stalks, Roots | 500 gms | 900 gms | 900 gms | 1000 gms |
- The longer the Wasabia japonica plant grows the more chance that it may die.
- Average market prices (retail and wholesale) for fresh product
Fresh | Rhizome | Stalk* | Leaf* |
Retail | €400 per Kg | €40 per Kg | €200 per Kg |
Wholesale | €150 per Kg | €10 per Kg | €80 per Kg |
* Normally only sold to special order. Leaf can be used in salads, normally sold by the piece.
- Average market prices (retail and wholesale) for powdered product
Powdered* | Rhizome | Stalk | Leaf | Whole Plant |
Retail | €800 per Kg | €200 per Kg | €50 per Kg | €400 per Kg |
Wholesale | €120 per Kg | €30 per Kg | €8 per Kg | €85 per Kg |
Reduction Ratio | 4:1 | 8:1 | 40:1 | 15:1 |
* Freeze dried or air dried.
- You need to be able to follow instructions. You will be operating a commercial business, not a research farm.
- If you plan on using a manager or employed person to run and operate the wasabi farm, then stop right now and walk away. Our experience is that using staff doesn’t work – they have no real interest or skin in the game. It becomes doable if you and your direct family are involved.
- Growing wasabi is not just about farming. In fact, growing wasabi is probably the simplest part of being involved with wasabi.
- You have to do your own marketing and make your own brand, market and demand in your local area. We can license the use of our Namida brand if required.
- Throughout the information that I supply I always stress that you need to be a marketer over and above being a grower. As I have said previously, growing the wasabi is the easy bit. It is actually getting enough money from your customer to make it worthwhile; that is the difficult part.
- I advocate that before you even start getting serious about growing wasabi, you do serious market research to find out if there is a “starving, hungry crowd” as Gary Halbert called it, that you can sell to. How big is it? What do they actually want – this is sometimes difficult because the product will be new to customers as most will never have seen true wasabi, and most importantly – How much are they willing to pay?
- Contrary to what you might think, restaurants will not be your best customers – most only want a couple of rhizomes per week (or month), and certainly do not want to pay reasonable prices for anything.
- The best customers we have found is the small greengrocer, delicatessen and specialised food store that you can work with to make the wasabi rhizome a star. This takes working with the store on a serious marketing plan to ensure that both of you maximise the returns. This might involve keeping the wasabi supply under control and using scarcity tactics to maintain price and profit levels.
- As a separate paid consultancy service we offer personal access to us to discuss your specific requirements. We can also provide design information in order that you can build the wasabi farm properly.
- The https://wasabi.org website was set up because there is little or no trustworthy information about growing Wasabia japonica or the pitfalls associated with it. If you have read some of my articles you will notice that I do not pull punches about what you need to do to become a successful Wasabia japonica These lessons have been learnt the hard way through experience. If you choose to ignore the information we provide because “it doesn’t make sense” or someone you know has told you it won’t work, then we would suggest that you do not proceed because you will lose your shirt.
- As we consistently tell people in my articles, growing Wasabia japonica with us is not for the faint hearted or those who want to experiment with their own ideas. We provide real designs, methods and ways of growing Wasabia japonica commercially with systems from 1000 plants to 1,000,000 plants.
We do have training courses that go from very basic Wasabi growing (Module 100) right up to Wasabi Guru and Consultant (Module 718). In addition we have the Elite Growers Circle which is limited to 12 invited people only – this is the mastermind group for very advanced Wasabi growers.