Why are you selling Zojirushi rice cookers and water heaters?

We have always loved eating rice. Having lived and spent considerable time in Asia, rice became a regular part of our diet, and we quickly developed an appreciation for the difference that a good rice cooker can make.

When we began looking for rice cookers in the UK, we were disappointed by many of the products available at the time. Some were unreliable, produced inconsistent cooking results, or struggled to cope with regular daily use. We wanted to find a rice cooker that could deliver consistently good rice while also being built to last.

We researched extensively, looking both online and in traditional brick-and-mortar stores, to find out which rice cooker brands had the best reputation for durability, reliability and cooking performance. One brand that consistently stood out was Zojirushi.

In 2001, we purchased a Zojirushi rice cooker for our own use. We were so impressed with its performance and durability that, even after approximately 10 years of daily use, the cooker was still going strong.

That experience convinced us that customers in the UK and Europe should have access to the same level of rice-cooking technology and reliability. We subsequently began sourcing Zojirushi rice cookers for customers in the UK and Europe, allowing others to experience what we had discovered ourselves.

Our experience with Zojirushi extended beyond rice cookers. We later purchased a Zojirushi water boiler, which also impressed us with its performance and reliability.

Zojirushi ultimately became an important inspiration for the development of our own Yum Asia brand. While we recognised that Zojirushi produced excellent rice cookers, our experience also showed us that there was scope to develop the technology further — particularly in terms of features, cooking functions, usability and providing different options at a range of price points.

That became the foundation for Yum Asia: taking what we had learned from years of using and working with high-quality Japanese rice-cooking technology and combining it with our own ideas to develop rice cookers designed around what customers actually want.