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Planning approved for UK’s ‘first’ saké brewery
Planning has been approved for what could become the UK’s “first” saké brewery, funded by a Japanese family that has been producing rice wine for 200 years.
An artist’s impression of the saké brewery set to be built by the Dojima company in Cambridgeshire
The Dojima company, owned by the Hashimoto family, has invested £9m in an estate near Newmarket in Cambridgeshire that will become the UK’s first rice wine brewery, after buying Fordham Abbey in Cambridgeshire, where it will also build an education and visitor centre, for £3m.
The abbey estate comprises a Georgian manor and more than 200 acres (81 hectares) of parkland and is close to Newmarket estate where the brewery will be located.
Dojima, which was supported by both UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and the Japanese government when it announced plans to begin brewing in the UK last year, had its plans approved by East Cambridgeshire District Council on Wednesday. The UK government said it would be a “first” for the UK and would create 100 jobs over five years.
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Dojima project manager Noriko Tomioka said work should begin at the site later this month, according to a report by the BBC. The brewery building itself is expected to take about six months to complete. The sake itself should be ready in about one year.
The rice will be imported from Japan, grown on a farm owned by the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, Ms Tomioka said.
The Hashimoto family is not the only sake producer hoping to open the UK’s first saké brewery.
Scotland’s Arran Brewery had hoped to become the first in the UK to begin producing sake, with its plans to build a sake brewery on the site of a former primary school on the isle of Arran were approved by North Ayrshire Council last year.
Its plans include a bottling facility, a beer hall, a brewing school, and a research and cultural centre, however its plans are currently on hold after its proposed site in Dreghorn, north Ayrshire, was repeatedly vandalised.
Fordham Abbey in Cambridgeshire, which the Dojima family bought for £3m last year. Near to the brewery, it will house a sake education and visitor centre.