On March 1, 2025, a new DtoC seasoning brand called Sato SEASONing was launched. It was planned and run by Rainbow Taste Inc., a company that provides business support services specialized in the seasoning industry. Running the owned media site Chomiryo.jp among other ventures, it's a startup building out a range of businesses to shine a spotlight on region-rooted "local seasonings" and expand the seasoning industry from multiple angles.
We spoke with CEO Risa Terakado about her passion for seasonings, the business strategy of separating media from EC from the very start, and her vision for the future.
Rainbow Taste Inc. CEO Risa Terakado
Wanting to Solve Every Problem Seasoning Makers Face
—— First, could you tell us about Rainbow Taste's current business?
Risa Terakado (hereafter, Terakado-san) Our main business is providing operational support for seasoning manufacturers. We hear about the business challenges our manufacturer clients face, propose solutions, and support them all the way through execution. Lately our scope has been expanding to include things like product development and sales promotion support.
We also run Chomiryo.jp, an owned media site focused specifically on seasonings, and on March 1st we launched our DtoC brand, Sato SEASONing.
—— From media to EC, it's a really wide-ranging set of businesses all centered on seasonings.
Terakado-san At first, honestly, I didn't know what I was capable of. So I started by talking directly with manufacturers and trying to understand what they were struggling with.
In the beginning, it wasn't really a formal service — it was more like thinking through the challenges right in front of us together, trial and error. From there, the support we offered gradually took shape, little by little, into an actual business.
As I talked with manufacturers, I kept hearing things like "there's no place to promote ourselves" or "we don't get many sales opportunities." So I thought, if it doesn't exist, let's build it ourselves — and that's how Chomiryo.jp, our web media site, got started. There, we share manufacturers' stories and product information, and provide a place to connect with readers.
After launching the media site, I kept hearing from manufacturers who were looking for a place to sell, and out of a desire to provide exactly that, we launched Sato SEASONing and began selling local seasonings.
—— So the flow from business support, to media, to sales came about naturally.
Terakado-san Yes. As we did business support work, whenever we felt "this kind of service is needed," we turned it into a business. The core has always been supporting manufacturers, and our new businesses have grown as an extension of that.
Turning "Etching Travel Memories into Flavor" into a Career
—— Could you tell us about how you came to want to start your own company?
Terakado-san After graduating from university, I worked as an employee at a general company. The industry I was involved with the longest was the matchmaking industry — I worked at a company running matchmaking apps, marriage counseling services, and matchmaking parties. I mainly handled back-office work, and my main role was as a secretary, but through supporting executives, I came to find management itself fascinating — I started to feel that it was really cool to start a company in pursuit of a goal you wanted to achieve.
Rather than simply thinking "I want to do something!", my interest in management itself kept growing.
—— So you moved toward starting a company out of an interest in management itself, rather than starting from something you wanted to do.
At first I had a vague feeling of wanting to challenge myself with something while still in my twenties. But at that point, I didn't have a clear picture of exactly what I'd do. After that, having worked at a few different companies, I came back around to the fact that I really love seasonings, and wondered if I could somehow make seasonings my life's work. I decided to try turning seasonings into a career through starting my own business.
—— What made you love seasonings enough to build a career around them?
Terakado-san Actually, my father loved spices, and our house had rows and rows of them. From a young age, enjoying how flavors changed depending on the seasoning was just part of everyday life for me.
After I started working, I had more chances to travel domestically for both business and leisure, but because of work and scheduling, I often couldn't find the time to properly enjoy sightseeing. Out of that came a habit of "buying seasonings wherever I traveled." If I brought back local seasonings, I could recreate that region's flavors at home, and keep the memory of the trip alive as a taste.
Before I knew it, my collection of seasonings had grown, and I started taking photos and jotting down notes on my impressions. That eventually led to the idea behind my current business.
Terakado-san's record of every seasoning she's tried — the sheer volume speaks to her passion for seasonings.
An Owned Media Strategy Kept Separate from the EC Site
—— One really distinctive thing about Rainbow Taste is that you ran an owned media site before you even had an EC store.
Terakado-san Generally, the common pattern is to add media features to an EC site, but at our company, we deliberately keep media and sales separate.
On the media side, we focus on sharing stories about seasonings and the passion behind the people making them, to build engagement with our audience.
Looking at our future business plans, we envision adding value to the media side, like community features, and ultimately turning it into a seasoning platform. The web media is the foundation for that. So rather than being media embedded inside an EC store, we want it to keep functioning long-term as its own independent media property.
—— A seasoning platform sounds fascinating!
Terakado-san Down the road, we envision adding EC sales functionality to the web media itself, so that manufacturers can sell directly through it.
Right now, we've built a clear pathway between media and EC, guiding people toward a purchase at the right moment. For example, we place links to related products within articles, let people jump straight from a seasoning recipe page to the purchase page, and connect with social media so that sharing media articles can also help expand product awareness.
Launching the DtoC Brand "Sato SEASONing"
—— What kind of business is Sato SEASONing, which launched in March, within the company as a whole?
Terakado-san The DtoC brand we launched this time, Sato SEASONing, is positioned as something like our own directly-run brand. It's a brand we've built and run ourselves from the start, and we want to build it up with real brand strength, so we think of it as separate from the media side.
Sato SEASONing originally grew out of the "few sales opportunities" problem that surfaced through our business support work, but rather than simply supporting sales, we decided to launch our own brand and create a model case for a sales channel.
Right now, we contract directly with manufacturers all across the country, adopting a direct-sales model that cuts out wholesalers. This lets us secure margins for manufacturers while still delivering products to users at a fair price.
Fluidity Between Shops Was the Deciding Factor in Choosing Shopify
—— Could you tell us why you chose Shopify to launch your EC site?
Terakado-san Building from scratch takes a lot of cost and time, and we wanted to launch quickly, so we chose Shopify. It's also well suited to building a sales site focused specifically on our own brand, which was another reason.
Back when I was a user of brands built on BASE or Shopify, I noticed that with payment methods like Shop Pay, the information you enter on one shop can also be used on another shop. I thought that was an incredibly convenient feature even before we launched our own site, and as a user myself, I was genuinely interested in it.
—— That's the kind of thing only a real power-user would notice about payment features (laughs).
Terakado-san I personally love using all kinds of DtoC services, whether it's sweets, beauty products, or otherwise. As a user, I always felt that the fluidity between shops was incredibly convenient.
—— When building your Shopify store, were there parts you built from scratch?
Terakado-san Right now it's roughly 40% custom-built and 60% existing functionality.
That said, the final spec isn't fixed yet — we plan to keep adjusting as we see how things go operationally. A lot of the finer functionality is handled through custom development, but our policy is to make use of Shopify apps as much as possible.
Smooth Logistics Integration Is Also a Shopify Strength
Terakado-san Another reason we chose Shopify was that we'd already decided to outsource shipping to a logistics company. Since we'd planned from the start to hold inventory, we actually chose our logistics partner before we even settled on an EC platform. We already had some seasonings we were selling on a trial basis, and we needed to make inventory management and shipping more efficient.
So we looked for a platform with high fluidity that would integrate smoothly with other services, and concluded that Shopify was the best fit.
—— You chose OPENLOGI as your logistics partner — why was that?
Terakado-san OPENLOGI supports automatic integration with Shopify, which meant we could automate nearly the entire process — that was a huge plus. The initial setup did take a bit of effort, but once it was connected, everything from order receipt to shipping runs smoothly, and now we're running things almost entirely on autopilot.
A Shopify Site We're Growing Through Apps
—— Among the Shopify apps you currently use, which are your favorites?
Terakado-san We're still very much in a trial-and-error phase, but one app I've found especially convenient is KOMOJU. I was surprised at how convenient it was after adopting it. In particular, being able to introduce a variety of payment methods with almost no hassle has been a huge help.
I was involved in building an EC site at a different company once before, and back then, setting up the payment system was extremely difficult. But with the combination of Shopify and KOMOJU, the payment setup comes together with essentially the push of a button — the ease of it genuinely impressed me.
Another one is Shopify Bundles. At Sato SEASONing, our basic sales format is bundling several individual seasonings together into a set, and this app makes it easy to implement that kind of bundle sale. Since we can flexibly add options, I think it also makes for a UI that's easy for users to shop with.
And then there's OPENLOGI. It's indispensable for optimizing our logistics. Shipping is processed automatically in sync with order data, which has let us cut down dramatically on the manual labor involved.
Logistics-related work naturally takes a lot of effort, so "how do we automate this as much as possible?" was a key question for us. Given how well it integrates with Shopify, OPENLOGI was really the ideal choice.
The apps installed on our own brand site, Sato SEASONing
Shopify Expands the Range of Our Marketing
—— Are there any challenges you're currently facing in running your EC site?
Terakado-san Our biggest challenge is strengthening marketing. We're still very much in a trial-and-error phase when it comes to raising brand awareness, and in particular, I want to make better use of the marketing features available within Shopify itself.
We also plan to strengthen our integration with our Chomiryo.jp media site further. There's a limit to how much traffic an EC site alone can generate, so we want to put real effort into content-driven marketing, building a system that guides users through a flow of "learn about it, try it, buy it."
Shopify is highly extensible, so it's easy to use as our DtoC brand keeps growing. For example, we're currently strengthening bundle sales using Shopify Bundles, while also planning to gradually introduce a subscription-based sales model.
By deepening the integration with our media, I'd like to evolve this into a content-driven form of EC.
—— Is there anything you hope for from Shopify going forward?
Terakado-san Going forward, I'd love to see even more flexible marketing features added.
For example, campaign features that integrate with media, or features that make it easier to set up personalized promotions — more of those would really expand what's possible in running an EC business.
Transforming the Seasoning Industry Through EC and Media
—— Could you tell us about your plans for the business going forward?
Terakado-san In the short term, our top priority is raising awareness of our DtoC brand, Sato SEASONing, and establishing it as a brand with real value. After that, I want to turn our web media, Chomiryo.jp, into a place that even more manufacturers can make use of.
What we ultimately want to offer is a solution for manufacturers. In the end, I think it's healthy for us to circle back to our business-support work and be able to plant our feet firmly back there — that's something I want to keep in mind as we move forward.
As a company, our first priority is to firmly establish our business foundation, and ultimately, we're aiming to become a "seasoning platform" that can contribute to the industry as a whole.
—— Finally, could you tell us about your own personal vision?
Terakado-san Personally, I have a strong desire to spread the appeal of local seasonings even further. Getting people to discover seasonings from all sorts of regions and bring them into their everyday meals — that's my life's work.
Terakado-san continues to take on challenges from many different angles, using the distinctive lens of "local seasonings" to expand what's possible in the seasoning industry. Her willingness to draw on her own experience and passion to open up a new market left a real impression on us. Thank you so much for sharing this valuable look into your business strategy!
