Tannery of the Year: Midori Hokuyo, Yamagata, Japan

摘要

Industrial group Midori Anzen is best known in Japan and overseas as a leading safety goods company, making helmets, workwear and safety footwear. It still makes some of its high-end shoes on home soil and, at first glance, it may look as though this is the reason why it continues to run its own tannery in Yamagata, a city 400 kilometres north-west of Tokyo. But it's not the case. The leather division, Midori Hokuyo, is a big operator in its own right (it accounts for, around one-third of total group sales), with tanneries, cutting plants or sales offices in Brazil, China, Mexico and the US as well as Japan, and its specialism, at least for the last 35 years, has been automotive leather.