The sales of sake was decreasing, as consumers had a variety of taste for liquors. Seasonal migrant laborers (tojis and kurabitos) got older and their successors were wanting. There has been a structural change in the sake brewing industry of the Fushimi Area since 1980's.
We pay attention to brewers' scale and the inter-brewer trade (oke-torihiki). The inter-brewer trade plays an important part in the brewing industries of the Fushimi Area. Petty-scaled brewers had sold part or all of their products to large-scaled ones, before there recently appered some medium-scaled brewers that sold part of produ cts to ‘aid’ some petty-scaled brewers which could not brew by themselves. A coo perative brewing factory was established by six brewers in 1989, in opposition to computer controll systems of three large-scaled brewers.
Therefore' we classify brewers of the Fushimi Area, and the traditional types of brewers are as follows:
A) Large-scaled brewers, that buy from petty and small-scaled ones (types C-1 and C-2), but produce almost of sales by themselves.
B) Small and medium-scaled brewers,
B-1) that buy from petty-scaled (type C-2) ones.
B-2) (independent ones) that don't trade with other brewers.
C) petty and small-scaled brewers,
C-1) (subordinate ones) that sell all of their products to a large-scaled one (type A).
C-2) (dependent ones) that sell part of their products to small and medium-ones (type B-1) and large-scaled ones (type A).
The new types of brewers since 1980's are follows:
D) petty-scaled brewers, that buy from medium-scaled ones (types E, and F).
E) medium-scaled brewers, that sell part of their products to aid petty-scaled ones (type D).
F) Cooperative brewers, one of that is medium-scaled one, and the others of that are petty and small-scaled ones.