Arline is a Japanese to English translator and interpreter based in Zurich, Switzerland. Her work increasingly focuses on helping sake brewers - who use koji as an essential part of the brewing process - and koji starter makers communicate the complexity and value of their work.

Arline also develops and delivers workshops, creates sake pairings and focuses on unearthing and curating information about koji and sake brewing only available in Japanese and bringing it to English-speaking brewers, fermenters and supporters of Japanese food culture.

Find Arline on Instagram at @tastetranslation and @discoversake. Visit her websites at taste-translation.com and discover-sake.com.

Aya Abe Rowe is the founder of Aya’s Culture Kitchen, a small-batch Japanese fermented food company based in Arlington, MA. Originally from Japan, Aya grew up loving fermented foods—especially natto, which remains the heart of her work today.

At Aya’s Culture Kitchen, she handcrafts natto using traditional Japanese methods and organic soybeans, while also making miso, amazake, gochujang, and shiokoji. She regularly hosts an intimate Supper Club, where guests experience Japanese fermentation through seasonal dishes and condiments. Aya’s mission is to make authentic Japanese fermented foods accessible, delicious, and part of everyday life in the U.S.

Follow Aya’s adventures at @ayas_culture_kitchen, or connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Eleana Hsu is a small-batch producer, and mushroom forager based in San Francisco who specializes in using koji—an ancient fungus—to create innovative ferments through her business, Shared Cultures.

Inspired by traditional fermentation methods, wild-foraged mushrooms, and the diverse produce of Northern California, she transforms the region’s bounty into farm-to-ferment misos, shoyus, and umami seasonings. Her products are sold online and featured in restaurants, many of which hold Michelin stars. The San Francisco Chronicle has praised her company's ferments as “the secret ingredient in a growing number of hit dishes in the Bay Area,” celebrating the extraordinary flavors unlocked through koji fermentation. 

Follow Eleana on Instagram at @shared-cultures.

Hiraku Ogura is a highly skilled fermentation designer and the founder of Hakko Department located in Tokyo, Japan.

With a deep passion for fermentation science, he pursued his education at the esteemed Tokyo University of Agriculture, where he honed his expertise in this specialized field.

Follow Hiraku on social media at @hiraku_hakko on Instagram and @o_hiraku on X.

Justin has been in Japan since 2004 working as a project development specialist empowering local food and beverage producers by focusing on timeless value creation. He spent several seasons as a brewer at Kidoizumi Shuzo, having served stints at a range of other sake producers.

Justin is the co-founder and original producer of Sake On Air, the official podcast of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association, and producer of the inaugural Sake Future Summit in 2020. In 2022 he moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas to serve as the head brewer at Origami Sake, and is the co-founder and technical facilitator of the Advanced Sake Brewers Certification Course for the Sake Brewers Association of North America and Niigata University. As Chief Entertainment Officer of Potts.K Productions, Justin and his wife facilitate family-centered experiences for good food and sake.

Find Justin on Instagram at @just_in_justin_potts.

Katerina Lazareva is a chef, fermenter, and food systems innovator based in Byron Bay, Australia. For nearly a decade, she has been working at the intersection of traditional fermentation and modern sustainability. She is the founder of Byron Fermentary, a closed-loop, zero-waste garden and fermentary where ingredients are grown, fermented, and transformed into multiple high-value foods with nothing discarded. Her work focuses on using fermentation—particularly koji—as an innovative, practical tool to eliminate food waste in both home and commercial kitchens.

Through her education platform All Things Cultured, workshops, and consulting, Katerina teaches modern fermentation techniques rooted in cultural heritage, systems thinking, and circular food design. Her mission is to drive a cultural shift in how we value food—empowering people to turn scraps into flavour, waste into resources, and kitchens into regenerative ecosystems.

Find Katerina on Instagram at @bryon_fermentary and @allthings_cultured.

Based in France, Manami works as a cultural and practical bridge between Japanese fermentation producers and fermentation enthusiasts.

Through workshops, consulting, and the sale of fermented foods, she supports traditional fermentation practices so they can be understood, used, and sustained in different cultural contexts. Manami is also the founder of Atelier de Koji / Camossons.

Follow Manami on Instagram at @fr.atelierdekoji.

Guided by her mother’s creativity and her grandmother’s traditions in Kobe, Japan, Masako developed a style rooted in nostalgia and Japanese comfort food, blending heritage with innovation. After moving to Washington, D.C. in 2013 to pursue a career as an NFL dancer — Masako began sharing her culture through food. In 2019, she launched her pop-up concept OTABE, introducing the flavors of her childhood to D.C. and soon earning recognition for her soulful, inventive approach to Japanese cuisine.

Masako became Executive Chef at Perry’s in 2022, revitalizing the iconic Adams Morgan restaurant with signature dishes. Her leadership and creativity have earned her multiple honors, including Eater DC’s Chef of the Year (2023), Plate Magazine’s Chef to Watch (2024), and the James Beard Foundation’s Emerging Chef Award (2024). From 2023 to 2024, she served with the American Culinary Corps, using food as a bridge for cultural diplomacy and storytelling.

Find Masako on Instagram at @masako_morishita and @perrysdc.

Headshot photographed by @scottsuchman.

Mutsumi shares Japan’s rich fermentation and brewing culture with the world. As co-founder and interpreter of Hakko/Fermentation Tour, she has accompanied brewery tours since its inception four years ago.

Mutsumi also brings the authentic flavors and craftsmanship of Japan to a global audience through sake workshops, soy sauce tastings, and other events. Through the “English for Brewers” program, she helps Japanese brewers and fermenters share their stories and make food culture accessible and engaging.

Follow Mutsumi on Instagram at @mutsumi_koji_kamos_global, and visit her website at kojikamosglobal.jp.

Nick Adams owns and operates Koji House, a Virginia-based, small batch koji producer that supplies professional chefs, curious cooks, and makers of all kinds with the proper koji and knowledge to confidently build more memorable flavors.

Find Nick on Instagram at @thekojihouse, or visit his website and start your koji journey at kojihouse.co.

Peter Barrett has been growing, foraging, fermenting, preserving, curing, and cooking as much of his own food as possible for nearly 20 years—and teaching others to do the same.

Follow Peter on Instagram at @cookblog, or visit his website at flavor-freaks.net.

Subscribe to Peter’s Substack at @thingsonbread!

Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, he is the author of five books: Wild Fermentation; The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved; The Art of Fermentation; Fermentation as Metaphor; and his latest, Fermentation Journeys.

The Art of Fermentation, which received a James Beard award and has been widely translated, was selected by the New York Times as one of "The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years." Sandor's books, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts.

For more information, check out his website wildfermentation.com. Make sure to follow Sandor on Instagram at @sandorkraut.

Sho Suzuki is a fermentation chef and cultural editing chef based in Niigata, Japan. He serves as the Representative of the Snow Food Brand Council and the founder of SUZU Group. His work explores how heavy snowfall, fermentation, and local wisdom have shaped food culture in Japan’s snow country.

Through projects spanning miso culture, food education, regional revitalization, and international exchange, Sho reinterprets traditional food culture for the future. In 2026, he will host HAKKO EXPO in Los Angeles, sharing the philosophy of Snow Food with a global audience.

Find Sho on Instagram at @suzu0119, or visit his websites at suzugroup.com, and hakko-house.com.

Shuta Aoki is the fifth-generation of Marukome Co., Ltd., the world’s largest miso producer with a 170-year history. He has played a key role in advancing Marukome as a koji expert company, developing fermented foods grounded in both Japanese tradition and innovation. He also founded the Japan Amazake Export Promotion Council, where he serves as its inaugural Chairman.

Since October 2024, Aoki has concurrently served as President and CEO of Marukome USA, Inc.. A nationally certified miso craftsman, he is dedicated to creating delicious, healthy, and enriching food experiences through fermentation technology. 

Connect with Shuta on LinkedIn here, or follow him on Instagram at @marukomeus.

Soirée-Leone is a teacher and writer focused on putting food on the table. She lives and works from her 57-acre homestead in Middle Tennessee. She shares how to creatively and strategically preserve the food that we grow, glean, barter, and forage.

Soirée-Leone grew up on an off-grid homestead in rural Maine in the 1970s. After 23 years in San Diego, California, she and her husband left their urban homestead and moved to Tennessee. 

Find her on Instagram at @soireeleone, or visit her website at soireeleone.com.

Wataru Ogasawara is a microbiologist and Professor at Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan, working at the intersection of microbial discovery, fermentation science, and culture. While only about 0.02% of all microorganisms on Earth are cultivable, he leads the “Million Screening” project—an effort to explore the vast, untapped microbial diversity that underpins food, flavour, and fermentation.

Wataru’s research also focuses on revealing the craftsmanship of koji making through the science of solid-state cultivation. Together with fermentation designer Hiraku Ogura, he co-founded Hakko Science Lab. Building on his research, they are creating a Koji Dojo—a hands-on space where chefs, brewers, and researchers can engage directly with the techniques, microbes, and intuition behind koji fermentation.

Based in Niigata, Wataru works internationally to bridge science and practice, and to explore how fermentation can shape the future of food, brewing, and microbial innovation.

Connect with Wataru on LinkedIn here, or visit his website at microorganisms.jp/ogasawara-lab/.

Yoko Nakazawa is a Japanese-born, Australia-based author and fermentation practitioner. She grew up eating vegetables grown by her father and dishes made from those vegetables, alongside a wide variety of preserved foods. This upbringing shaped her deep connection to seasonality, preservation, and the practice of expressing gratitude through food - values she continues to share with others through her work.

Yoko makes and works with a range of koji, including brown rice koji, buckwheat koji, and mixed-grain koji, using them to produce miso, everyday seasonings, and preserved foods for daily use. Her approach focuses on accessibility and integrating fermentation naturally into home cooking. She runs workshops in Australia introducing miso, pickling, and other forms of everyday fermentation, with an emphasis on simple, sustainable practices. She is the author of The Japanese Art of Pickling & Fermenting.

Follow Yoko on IG at @cookingwithkoji, or visit her website at cookingwithkoji.wordpress.com.

Eric grew up in Arlington MA and graduated from Connecticut College in 2019 with a degree in Environmental Studies and International Relations. Eric became interested in regenerative agriculture when he was introduced to the school's campus Garden, SPROUT, his freshman year.

Eric has experience in farm based education and farm management from his prior work at SPROUT and Green City Growers, an urban agriculture company based in Somerville MA. Some of Eric’s favorite things to grow are carrots, lettuce, and eggplants. One of his favorite meals to cook is eggplant parmesan because it reminds him of community dinners at SPROUT.

Eric is looking forward to teaching more people about where their food comes from and creating some tasty recipes in the process. In his free time, Eric can be found gardening at home, snowboarding and longboarding, kayaking, or playing guitar.

Jennifer has over twenty years of experience building programs for museums, gardens and farms. Prior to relocating to Mystic, CT, Jennifer was the education director at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.

She was also the Vice President of Children’s and Public Education at The New York Botanical Garden where she worked for nine years and was the education director and interim director of the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo.

Jennifer has degrees in environmental biology and museum studies. She lives in Mystic with her husband and three young children. Her favorite thing to cook is caramel apple crumble.

Hayley grew up in coastal Southeastern Connecticut her whole life, and recently graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in Environmental Studies.

Before joining the Yellow Farmhouse team, she worked as a college admissions counselor, kids camp director, and climate department manager for multiple years. She loves to write on mostly any topic with specialties in endangered species, marine conservation, and renewable energy.

In her free time, Hayley enjoys the beach with a good book and iced coffee in hand; she also volunteers her free time for local land trusts and environmental non-profits. Her favorite meal to make are homemade mini pizzas using Naan bread, fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce with her dad - followed by a few rounds of ping pong!