Accessories designed for enjoying life, created from industrial crepe paper

With a sophisticated, chic print pattern, this cloth maintains a firm strength and resilience, despite its light weight. Made from recycled paper, this everyday fabric conjures up images of a fashionable picnic the moment you grab ahold of it. Crepe material was originally used as paper packaging for electrical wires and as tape for sealing cement bags. Sanyo Paper Co., Ltd. was founded as a paper sales company in Hiroshima in 1928, later establishing an Osaka regional plant in Sennan City in 1951 to provide recycled industry paper products. However, as times changed, the market for such products stretched thin. So in order to create a next-generation company infrastructure, a marketing department was established in 2014 with managing director Chiaki Harada appointed as department head. Following this, the company collaborated with staff and started breaking into the B-to-C market with original goods.

Sanyo Paper has established two unique brands, Sumideco (paper product accessories that take advantage of the deep-deodorizing and dehumidifying effects of plum charcoal), and PELP! (waste paper recycling project).　The factory first began producing an everyday seating cloth using crepe paper starting in 2016, but it it was coming into contact with Osaka product designer Kenji Fukushima that this product was unexpectedly developed. Fukushima proposed the picnic blanket concept, with the packaging and patterning altered through discussions each month at a development meeting. This recycled product received more orders than expected at its debut interior design expo, with the base material nearly running out prior to manufacturing. “We were able to produce a product that elicits different responses just by changing the color, and the factory staff is highly aware that they are creating a product specifically for the end user,” says factory manager Mr. Nakano. With its 100-year-anniversary not far away, Sanyo Paper’s future is sure to be filled with continual innovation.