PROMOTING INDEPENDENCE: Yokohama firm
provides income boost to disabled sales reps
By HIDEO SATO/ Staff Writer
March 2, 2017 at 07:10 JST

Editor's note: This is the first of a three­part
series on the integration of business and social
welfare.
Atsushi Tadokoro moves in his electric
wheelchair to meet potential customers of anoral hygiene gel. But born with cerebral palsy,
he has difficulties delivering his sales pitch.
For every tube he sells for a tax-inclusive 1,080
yen ($9.50), he takes home 350 yen.
The teeth-brushing gel, called Oral Peace, is a
product of Yohohama-based Trife Inc. Daisuke
Teshima set up the venture firm to promote
self-reliance of disabled people who may lose aguardian to take care of them when theirparents die.

Atsushi Tadokoro checks the inventory of Oral
Peace teeth-brushing gel at his home in
Yokohama. (Hideo Sato)

A growing network of individuals, such as
Tadokoro, and facilities supporting disabledpeople serve as sales agents for Oral Peace,
whose sales started about four years ago.
Tadokoro, 35, of Yokohama’s Tsuzuki Ward,
has no regular job and required almost aroundthe-clock care from helpers.
He was raised by his mother, and when hedecided to find a way to live on his own, he wasrejected by several real estate agents.
Tadokoro was finally able to rent his present apartment.
He had never thought he could make it in sales, but living on his own spurred him to try working
as a sales agent. He began selling Oral Peace about a year ago.
“My mother is in her 60s, so there is no telling when she could suffer from an illness,” Tadokorosaid.
Tadokoro receives about 100,000 yen in monthly income from pensions and other subsidies fordisabled people. Although his mother also chips in, he does not have much left over after paying
for his monthly expenses, including 64,000 yen in rent.

Tadokoro was persuaded to sell Oral Peace by Yukitaka Suda, 72, who heads Tsubasa, a nonprofit
organization in Yokohama that serves as an adult guardian for people with disabilities and otherproblems.
Tadokoro at first used Facebook to publicize his sales venture. He now sells about 10 tubes amonth, mainly to acquaintances.
While that only translates into about 3,500 yen a month in income, Tadokoro said, “I find it
interesting to think about ways to get people to buy the product.”
Oral Peace was created to help people such as Tadokoro increase their income. Trife developed theproduct in cooperation with scholars at Kyushu University and others.
Unlike regular toothpaste, Oral Peace does not have to be spit out. Made of natural substances,
Oral Peace can be swallowed safely but it still has the ability to disinfect the mouth.
That makes the product well suited for elderly and disabled people who have problems gargling or
brushing their teeth.
“Sales agents,” in the form of disabled people and the facilities where they work, have sold Oral
Peace to hospitals and elderly care facilities.
Between 200 and 350 yen a tube goes to the sales agent as that person’s income.
In the three years since the product hit the market, about 300 facilities around Japan that provide
working opportunities for disabled people have become sales agents. Similar facilities have beencommissioned to manufacture and ship the product.
For the most recent year, Trife recorded annual sales of 65 million yen, about three times thefigure for the first year after Oral Peace went on sale.
Teshima, 46, learned about the tough realities facing disabled people--many receive only about
10,000 yen a month for their work--after his oldest son was born with a disability 16 years ago.
After working for a trading company, Teshima joined a venture firm and started a new cosmetics
brand. While he contributed to that company’s listing on the stock exchange, he left the company
in 2006 to establish Trife.
He then became involved in creating jobs for disabled people.
Teshima was concerned about whether his son would be able to live on his own after his parents
were no longer around.
The father was shocked by a newspaper article he read five years ago about a mother in her 70s andher severely disabled son in his 40s who lived together fairly close to Teshima’s home.
They were both found dead at their home. The mother apparently died first from an illness. Theson, who had difficulty walking and eating by himself, died about a week later, also from an illness.
When the two bodies were found, rice in a cooker and food in the refrigerator had been left
untouched.
About 7.9 million disabled people live in Japan. A big concern among their families is what will
happen to them when their parents die.

Using the experience he gained in the business world, Teshima wanted to create a business modelthat would create jobs for disabled people and increase their income. He came up with the idea of
having disabled people sell “a radically new product.”That was when Teshima remembered an e-mail he had received from an unknown researcher.
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