40% of a Barrel's Cost
Taking wastewater treatment from our highest expense to a sustainable, 99% pure solution. Watasumi.
Hey, I’m Casey. Welcome to our newsletter, sharing the startup journey of Kamui Whisky K.K. We’ve been busy, but when we aren’t overwhelmed, we’ll share a story as we craft up a whisky distillery on a remote, frozen, volcanic island in the most northern part of Japan.
Our Saturn has returned When we turned two Everything started to change
Paraphrased from the opening lyrics of Kacey Musgraves’, “Deeper Well”.
It certainly feels like we have solved one of our costliest problems, and that things are about to change.
40% of the Cost of a Barrel
Last year, we had to stop distillation for a month because of a wastewater disposal problem. We got caught in a political pincer. The facility we were using on the mainland to process our liquid waste refused to take our wastewater, despite having been processing it for months. They even sent us a mean-spirited gift, “returning” tanks of our wastewater, dropping it unwelcome on our front door. Gallingly, they went so far to send us a bill for the return ferry trip (of course, we’d already paid for the disposal costs).
This led to a panic in the team. We were maxed out with our wastewater storage tanks. We wouldn’t just dump anywhere; we care about our neighbors and our impact on the environment, so we had to stop production. In a flash the team was out on the road, covering 1500km in a rental car in just a couple of days, going up and down Hokkaido, visiting all the wastewater treatment facilities open to us, to find a solution.
A place was found a bit outside of Sapporo. After some weeks of sending samples for approval and getting the contract sorted out, we had a solution. They would come pick up our wastewater tanks every 2 weeks, and we would pay them a heck of a lot of money. Those tanks had to get on a big lorry, take the ferry across to Wakkanai, drive 6 hours down to the facility, and do that round trip again with empty tanks back to us a handful of days later.
It was not a cheap solution.
Wastewater treatment became our biggest cost. 40% of the cost of making a barrel was handling the disposal of our wastewater.
It wasn’t sustainable.
That level of cost certainly wasn’t in our business plan.
We needed a solution.
No Clear Answers within the Industry
One of the unspoken challenges in the industry, sitting very grey, is how to deal with the wastewater from whisky production. Before we set up our distillery we had asked around the industry. Toured distillers. We’d get half answers or no answers, but more often a shrug with a “We don’t really know what to do either.” The regulations were loose and grey.
Which meant that it wasn’t dealt with in a very effective way.
Not good for the streams and rivers and coasts.
Our Solution: Watasumi
Through a mutual friend1, I was introduced to an innovative solution: Watasumi2.
Watasumi is a Japanese-based startup launched out of OIST, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, with David, the founder, having researched how to make a sustainable, natural way to deal with alcohol production waste, the liquid waste. A true founder, he’d spent his own savings to launch and build Watasumi, to try to create a company off the back of research he’d spent over a decade on.
Here is a quick introduction about the bioreactor system from David, the founder of Watasumi, in his own words:
Watasumi’s bio reactors use bacteria, “bugs”, in their words, to breakdown the alcohol waste. If you keep the bugs warm and feed them the alcohol waste, they get really, really happy and eat it all. As the waste cycles through a couple of the different reactors a few times, the water gets cleaner and cleaner, ultimately coming out pristine, near drinkable levels.
99% of the alcohol waste is removed.
A side effect is that the bugs create electricity. If operated well the wastewater treatment system from Watasumi will create excess electricity that could help power our distillery. Even more sustainability!
Installing An Innovative Wastewater Treatment System
A big challenge was not only the setup of such an innovative system, but our remote, cold, windswept location was not in the original consideration of Watasumi’s system. They had to be flexible, and quickly.
Here is David again on the challenges of putting a bioreactor system in Rishiri, so far away from their idyllic base in Okinawa. Welcome to our wind, David!:
As you can imagine, such an innovative system, with such clear benefits is not cheap, but with the help of local government support money, being an early customer and David’s pay-it-forward outlook we were able to overcome our budget limitations to invest in this long-term, sustainable solution.
Problem Solving
If Watasumi can do it here in Rishiri, they can do it anywhere.
Installed
Watasumi’s sustainable, cost-effective vision is coming true on our remote island:
Our alcohol waste is now being treated in a sustainable and responsible manner. 99% of pollutants are removed. It’s natural. And soon, we will be saving a real amount of money for each barrel that we produce. A true blessing to my weekly accounting headaches. Soon to be gone are the days of 40% of the cost of a barrel being wastewater.
Environmentally sustainable, financially sustainable.
With Watasumi we have found our deeper well.
♾️
Thank you Eli!
The website needs some work 😉; they are still an early stage startup. The website doesn’t reflect the quality and real innovation of their system.
An inspiring story of resilience and innovation! Faced with a significant wastewater disposal challenge, your team didn't give up. Instead, you embarked on a determined search. Despite the high costs and initial setbacks, your commitment to sustainability and the environment never wavered. This journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and the innovative spirit driving Kamui forward. Would be a great story to share on LinkedIn.