Two brothers helped turn their struggling family business into an international brand

When they were young children, Kuni and Tomo Hijikata believed that their business was worth fighting for. Founded at Nagoya, Japan back in 1936 The Hijikata family's casting iron foundry was known for its meticulous precision. However, by the time it was in the early 90s, the foundry's future was at risk. As the heirs of the long-standing business, Kuni and Tomo knew that it was their responsibility to preserve their casting iron craftsmanship intact.

At the time, both brothers worked in Toyota and Toyota Tsusho However, they saw an opportunity to design cast iron cookware that would be passed down through generations. So, each brother quit their regular jobs and went full-time into saving the family-owned company. The brothers learned on the floor of the foundry as artisans before launching the company in 2010. Vermicular began to take shape. Their first cast iron pot hit the market, demand racked up a whopping 15-month backorder, fueled largely through enthusiastic word-of-mouth.

10 years on more than a decade later, the Vermicular team is setting their targets for expansion across the globe, currently offering their goods in the U.S., China, and beyond. To better communicate the worth of their cooking equipment to the foreign markets that aren't yet available, Vermicular has invested heavily in video to spread the word. "Without our videos, we'd have a tougher expansion of our company," says Mark Hayashi the Vermicular's Director of U.S. Office. We caught up with Kuni, Tomo, and Mark to learn more about Vermicular's plan to go global with video. See their stories above as well as read their full interview below.

"We often think of our video assets as serve as the extension of our products and brand. Visuals are always more effective than writing, and this is true especially for cooking."   Mark Hayashi, Vermicular's Head of U.S. Office

 How did you develop this product?

Tomo: "I thought that we could use our firm's cast iron expertise to create enameled cast iron pots equipped with lids that are perfectly fitting. However, there was no precedent for that process in Japan. We knew then that we'd have to pioneer the process on our own.

To master everything we could, Kuni and I sat on the floor of the foundry. Kuni turned into a casting craftsman while I became a machinery expert. We needed three years and over 10,000 iterations before we came up with a concept that met our goals."

 What was the process of setting up your brand within Japan?

Mark: "Brand storytelling has always been at the foundation of our marketing and communication strategies. The telling of stories about our distinctive history and commitment to craftsmanship was a hit with our customers and made us feel more connected to them on a deeper scale.

We began by creating video concepts around our mission statement for our brand. Whether creating a brand story video or how-to-product tutorial, we make sure they reflect who we are. We began by saying that we weren't focusing too much on short-term sales rather, we focused on increasing the customer's satisfaction from a longer-term perspective."

 What has been your biggest hurdle in building Vermicular? Vermicular brand beyond Japan?

Mark: "Our biggest challenge was the difficulty in communicating. Since we launched Vermicular in 2010, we've had a lot of challenges. Vermicular brand in 2010, we've established a solid reputation in Japan but nothing has transferred over outside Japan. It was a matter of creating the Vermicular brand from scratch, which was challenging and required extensive pre-launch preparations."

 What was the first place you invested in order to establish your brand internationally?

 Your content that you've branded is evidently stunning. What is the process that brought you to this quality?

Mark: "We worked with a brand agency to create the video for our brand and we took a long time deciding on the look and feel' of the lighting, wardrobe, and casting, and food styling. Additionally, we took a long time working back and forth about creating videos storyboards, which were the mainstay throughout the whole process, which included the day of shooting.

With so many people involved during the shooting, there are almost always unexpected setbacks resulting in delays at the onset. Having a solid storyboard with a thorough shoot schedule helps establish clearly defined expectations, and guides everyone who is involved in the shooting to focus in the similar direction. The storyboards did not just provide a detailed plan for our hectic shoot days, it also helped us avoid post-production woes. I think this step is particularly important for small-scale brands with a limited budget."

 Where are you investing the money you earn in order to continue expanding?

Mark: "Our hypothesis was the creation of a product-related video with a how-to-video series would allow our customers to experience the maximum capabilities of our induction cooker. In our statement, our mission doesn't come to an end once customers have made an order for our cooking equipment.

We want to see our customers be able to cook with the Vermicular cookware in the longest time possible. We've noticed clear results from these how-to-videos as they assist in educating the owners but also help shoppers have a better understanding of the usage of the cookware."

 Did video aid in creating the name of Vermicular around the world?

Mark: "Definitely! Many. The way we think about our video content to be the extension of our brand and products. We may not have the most budget, but we spend hours trying to figure out the story and the format of videos that will most effectively tell the story of our brand. Visuals are always more effective than writing This is particularly relevant in the field of cooking."

 What are the reasons the team use the HTML0 format to embed and host your video?

Mark: "We prefer for many reasons, the primary being 's customizable features to embed video. The clutter-free and ad-free experience provides seamless user experience across the website , and also protects the "touch and feel" of our logo.

It also allows us to exchange draft contents between our teams from the U.S. and Japan, making it easy to receive feedback, even when you're thousands of miles apart."

 What's next to be the next step for Vermicular?

Kuni: "More innovative products are in the works and we'll be expanding our range of offerings across the U.S. and across various Asian countries."

Mark: "We are currently strategizing our video content strategy that includes everything from brand-name content that includes various farmers and chefs to explaining videos, as well as instructional videos that will become our valuable assets in the years ahead."