TSUBAME, Niigata Prefecture--In the heat of summer last year, Shigeaki Nomizu, head of a home electronics maker here, faced an urgent request from the government that sent a chill up his spine. 

Nomizu, 55, the third-generation president of Twinbird Corp., was summoned by the health ministry and asked whether his company “could produce 5,000 freezers for coronavirus vaccine transport.”

A ministry official told Nomizu, “It will not be acceptable to miss the deadline. Decide as soon as possible.”

Nomizu desperately wanted to sign the contract to improve his company’s barely profitable freezer business, which was viewed as a “burden” for Twinbird.

However, considering if a necessary manufacturing facility and needed funds could be prepared, Nomizu was unable to quickly make up his mind. He was also worried about the possibility of a succession of the freezer’s failures leading to the spoilage of many COVID-19 vaccines, needed to bring the pandemic under control.

On his return to Tsubame, a northern city famed for its quality manufacturing industry, which thrives on metal tableware production, Nomizu called an emergency meeting of directors.

Executives stated joining the project to help “save people’s lives” and “contribute to society like Ultraman,” citing one of Japan’s most-known TV series heroes. 

Encouraged by their positive responses, Nomizu visited the health ministry again a few days later and told the ministry representative that he “willingly accepts your request.”

Nomizu then took the subway to head for his firm’s branch in the Nihonbashi district in Tokyo and talked to an accompanying executive responsible for sales promotion on a train.

“I will force you to have to deal with a difficult time from now on,” Nomizu told him in a lowered voice.

Brimming with tears, the executive replied, “The previous president, who decided to invest in the business, must be satisfied.”

More than 20 years earlier, Tadashi Sasaki, the late vice president of Sharp Corp., who was involved in the development of liquid crystals, advised Twinbird that there “would be no future unless you pour funds into the irreplaceable technology other companies cannot create.”

The suggestion marked the beginning of Twinbird’s “difficult times.” Sasaki recommended the corporation’s technical department devise a cooling system to expand and compress helium gas through piston motion in cylinders.

Shigekatsu Nomizu, 79, the preceding president of Twinbird, approved the proposal, and the technology’s research and development were initiated.

Although the mass production line for the product was introduced in a specialized plant in 2002, Twinbird could not find customers for the cooling equipment.

As Twinbird had been reporting losses for five consecutive years since the business year ending in February 2003, some executives were demanding the freezer “business be dropped” at directors’ meetings.

Despite the opposition, the former president refused to withdraw from the market since he made the decision to invest in it on his own. Looking back on those days, an executive who formerly was a bank official said, “The business would have been discontinued if it hadn’t been that the president was also the owner of the company.”

The winds shifted in 2011, when Twinbird was asked by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to make freezers for Japan’s Kibo experiment module within the International Space Station (ISS).

Whereas producing a paltry two units could not pay off, Shigeaki, who became the new president earlier that year, hoped to keep engineers’ morale high.

The business went into the black for the first time in the fiscal year ending in February 2014, but the section continued to be sluggish. The president and other executives toured Europe and the United States to boost sales, but no large orders came in.

Even when Twinbird reached out to the health ministry to promote its cooling system during the spread of the novel coronavirus, the government agency initially hesitated to adopt the company’s product.

What made the ministry finally order 5,000 units was the excellent mobility of the Twinbird product.

Whilst many manufacturers offered to provide immobile freezers, Twinbird’s smaller freezer measures 69 centimeters wide, 35 cm long and 46 cm tall and weighs only 16 kilograms, rendering it possible for the device to be easily carried around.

Twinbird also received an order from Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. for 5,000 units.

A challenge was how to produce 4,000 units per month, 10 times more than the initial capacity, to meet the deadline.

Home appliances in inventories were brought out of the warehouse, so that space can be secured for tests and other processes. Household electronics assembly was outsourced at the time.

Twinbird has 300 staff members and invited 50 partner company employees from the local Tsubame-Sanjo region. Twinbird commissioned parts production as well. With those efforts, the company could meet the tight deadline.

The special demand in its floundering business proved to be a savior for Twinbird and helped the company play a key role in the national vaccination project.

As a result, Twinbird posted a profit of 160 million yen ($1.45 million) in the business year ending in February 2021, compared with a 130 million yen loss the previous year.

Twinbird said it is being flooded with an increasing number of inquiries from local governments.