Students let a local agricultural product shine by partnering with a 215-year-old sweets maker for a new take on a classic Japanese treat.

Hiyori Matsuo, Rine Yamaguchi, and Yuira Yamaguchi were students at Nagasaki Prefecture’s Isahaya Commercial High School when they dreamed up a sweet new idea for their business internship course in early summer 2025. Wanting to create something novel using local products famous to the area, they landed on partnering with Sugitani Honpo, a traditional Japanese sweets shop founded back in 1812, and Taki Carrot Farm, which grows Nagasaki’s Beni Tenjin brand of carrots that have a unique sweetness without a strong carrot smell.

▼ The three high school students (now alumni)

They began experimenting by incorporating the carrot into the sweets shop’s famous castella cake but were met with mixed results. Their final course presentation came and went this past January, along with high school graduation in March, but they still didn’t give up. Luckily, all of that hard work paid off as they were eventually able to develop the Beni Tenjin Carrot Nama Dorayaki.

Nama dorayaki is a slightly more modern twist on the classic dorayaki confection in which two pancake-like buns are sandwiched together with an anko sweet red bean filling–but with the addition of freshly whipped cream. Sugitani Honpo already offers a variety of nama dorayaki in its standard lineup with different combinations of cream and freshly sliced fruit slices as a bonus. The new Beni Tenjin Carrot Nama Dorayaki joins this series as a particularly unique offering.

The final perfected product consists of a moist outer dough baked by the castella artisans at Sugitani Honpo filled with whipped cream, ogura-an (mashed, chunky sweet red bean paste), and Beni Tenjin syrup.

The three developers have stated that finding the correct balance between the filling ingredients was the hardest part of the development process. However, after extensive testing, they’re confident that even people who normally don’t like carrots should be able to eat this nama dorayaki without any problem thanks to the sweetness and odor-free quality of the Beni Tenjin carrots.

In exciting news for the now-alumni and their families, the Beni Tenjin Carrot Nama Dorayaki was officially launched for sale on April 25 and can now be purchased at Sugitani Honpo’s main storefront in Isahaya, Nagasaki. The product’s label gives a sweet nod to all three of the entities that participated in its development, including “Isahaya High School,” in text and as a cute illustration of a rabbit wearing the school’s uniform.

It’s great seeing communities band together with local students for a variety of reasons. We can’t wait to see what creative new idea gains traction to encourage local interactions next!

Store information
Sugitani Honpo / 杉谷本舗
Address: Nagasaki-ken, Isahaya-shi, Yasaka-machi 6-10
長崎県諫早市八坂町 6-10
Open 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Website

Source, images: PR Times
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