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Companies Expanding Overseas
Shabondama Soap Co., Ltd.

Companies Expanding Overseas

Shabondama Soap Co., Ltd.

About Shabondama Soap

Shabondama Soap is a company with over 100 years of history, founded in 1910 in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture. Since 1974, we have been committed to our corporate philosophy of "protecting healthy bodies and clean water", and thus have been manufacturing and selling "additive-free" soaps that contain no synthetic surfactants or fragrances. Through our business activities, we strive to protect people's health and the global environment and contribute to society.

What products is your company aiming to expand overseas?

We are working to spread both our "additive-free soap," which is gentle on the environment and the human body, and our "fire extinguishing agents," which help suppress fires without harming nature and human. We have already provided our additive-free soap to overseas including the United States, Korea, China, and Russia. In recent years, we have been focusing on expanding into Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Another type is a fire extinguishing agent primarily composed of additive-free soap. Fire departments, having experienced increased water damage from fires in mid-to-high-rise buildings and a shortage of extinguishing water due to water pipe damage during the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, urgently needed to establish fire extinguishing techniques that used "less water." At that time, there were no domestically produced fire extinguishing agents, and trials were conducted using foreign-made synthetic extinguishing agents. However, it was discovered that after use, nearby gutters would overflow with foam, causing adverse effects on the ecosystem. As a result, the Kitakyushu City Fire Department requested us to consider the development of an environmentally friendly fire extinguishing agent that could extinguish fires with less water.
With the University of Kitakyushu and the Kitakyushu City municipality, a seven-year-long collaboration began between industry, academia, and government, and developed over 800 prototypes. Eventually, we succeed to make a Japan's first commercial Class-A (for general fires and forest fires) fire extinguishing agent. This fire extinguishing agent maintains its fire-extinguishing performance (efficiently removes heat using a small amount of water), while also being biodegradable (decomposes in water after application and leaves no residual toxicity), environmentally friendly (does not harm the human body or the ecosystem), and highly penetrating (penetrates deep into the soil). Demonstrations and dissemination activities are currently being carried out mainly in Indonesia, where forest and peat fires are frequent. We also received high praise from local stakeholders.

What kind of international cooperation and overseas business expansion has your company undertaken to date?

As global warming progresses, forest and peatland fires are occurring more frequently around the world, creating a negative spiral in ecosystems and human socio-economy. Hoping to stop this negative chain reaction, we began research from 2009 to 2011 with support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) to improve our fire extinguishing agent for use in forest fires. While promoting our research results at exhibitions and international conferences overseas, we received the interest of Indonesian university researchers.

We have been continuing our activities in Indonesia since 2013 to the date. In 2013, we launched a JICA grassroots technical cooperation project in Balikpapan, Indonesia, in collaboration with the Kitakyushu Foundation for Advancement of Industry and Science (FAIS), the Kitakyushu City, and the University of Kitakyushu. In 2016, we implemented a JICA SME Overseas Expansion Support Project (feasibility study) in Palangkaraya City, Central Kalimantan Province. From 2022 to 2025, we implemented a JICA SDGs Business Support Project (JICA Biz, verification survey) with the collaboration of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), the Kitakyushu City Fire Department, the University of Kitakyushu as well as the University of Palangka Raya, and national and local government officials in Indonesia. We conducted demonstration experiments on local peat soil and socioeconomic surveys, scientifically verifying the firefighting and environmental performance of our product in the local environment and listened challenges and possibilities from Indonesian fire fighters. We also organized one-week training in Kitakyushu City, invited Indonesian firefighting personnel.

What are your company's future prospects?

In August 2025, our new proposal with IGES was selected for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Global South Future-Oriented Project, and have just begun a one-year feasibility study. We are expanding the target area beyond Kalimantan to Sumatra (Riau and Jambi provinces) where the Indonesian government has designated as a priority area for peat fires. The technical performance of the fire extinguishing agent has been verified through our previous projects, and we are now pursuing market research for business development and the possibility of local production. Every time we travel, we are encouraged by the understanding and interest I meet with local people. While business realization is not easy, we will continue to work tenaciously from our base in Indonesia to contribute to the future of the Global South countries.