“By selecting and preparing the highest quality foods we can create balance and harmony, restore our health and heal our environment”.
Clearspring’s Chairman, Christopher Dawson, has dedicated his life to the study, promotion and distribution of organic foods, produced through organic agricultural and traditional processing techniques. He first began to study the benefits of a vegetarian diet on the body, and organic agricultural techniques on the planet, at just 18. His interest brought him from New Zealand to London, where he settled, opening the East West Natural Foods Store in Old Street in 1977.
Determined to learn more about traditional dietary practices and food-processing techniques, he travelled extensively throughout Europe, America, Australia and Asia, studying Far Eastern philosophical principles and traditions at the East West Foundation in Boston, U.S.A., as well as the distribution network of the natural foods movement in America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Christopher first visited Japan in 1979, when he accompanied the President of Japan’s largest exporter of traditional and natural foods, Mitoku Co., Ltd, on a tour of natural food enterprises throughout Japan. In 1980, he moved to Japan to work full-time at Mitoku, where he studied Japanese foods and production; worked with producers to develop products to suit the needs of customers abroad; and helped producers become compliant with EU organic certification. He also travelled extensively to introduce the foods to markets worldwide, with the intention of seeing if Japanese foods could really become international foods.
In September 1993 he set up Clearspring Ltd with the aim of marketing Organic and Authentic Japanese foods under the Clearspring brand.
"Primarily Clearspring was born out of a wish to build a global organic food brand, to protect and develop the production of authentic and artisanal foods, and to distribute such good foods worldwide. What motivates us is to increase consumption of wholesome, easy-to-prepare, great tasting daily foods for optimum nutrition."
Christopher’s lifelong commitment to, and expert knowledge of, Japan’s traditional food culture was officially recognised in May 2007. In the presence of the former Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, Christopher was the only non-Japanese person to receive the Award for Overseas Promotion of Japanese Food 2007 from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, for his distinguished contribution to the promotion of Japanese organic food worldwide.
http://www.clearspring.co.uk
