Shunkado, a confectionery company based in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, known for its signature product, "Unagi Pie," has announced the opening of a sweets theme park called "nicoe" in Hamakita Ward, Shizuoka Prefecture, on July 20th. "nicoe" is a portmanteau of "nico" (smile) and "en" (connection). The concept is "a Hamakita sweets community that spreads a new culture and style of sweets." The facility's establishment involved the involvement of creators including Transit General Office, with the logo designed by Tycoon Graphics, the staff uniforms designed by Keita Maruyama, and the interior design of Gokokuya by Yuko Nagayama. The facility is a single-story building with a total floor area of 1,573.70 square meters. The project investment is 3.1 billion yen, and the goal is to attract 300,000 visitors in the eight months remaining in fiscal year 2014, and 500,000 annually in five years. The theme park is comprised of six areas: the flagship shop, "Shunkado," selling Japanese and Western sweets, including Unagi Pie; the company's newly launched pie specialty brand, "coneri"; "Gokokuya," a new Japanese sweets brand also themed around grains and fermentation; the Italian buffet, "THE COURTYARD KITCHEN;" the parent-child space, "Playground 082"; and the "Kururi Forest" playground and "nicoe Garden" landscape, created by architect Makoto Tanijiri's Suppose Design Office. Managing Director Junya Mamiya explained about "Gokokuya," the first new brand in 53 years since "Unagi Pie," and "coneri." Gokokuya is based on the concept of "Japanese wisdom sweets that are delicious for the body," and offers a lineup of Japanese sweets such as manju and ohagi that incorporate the flavors of five grains and fermented foods, which are part of Japan's food culture. Coneri's concept is "pies that let you taste the flour," and they offer stick pie pastries made with an original dough called "koneriko," which is a blend of domestic wheat flour and kazuko, a flour made from miso. Gokokuya has set a sales target of 500 million yen per year in five years, and Coneri has set a sales target of 1 billion yen per year.

The "Unagi Pie Factory," which opened in 2005 and offers factory tours, boasts an annual attendance of 620,000 people, and Mamiya is enthusiastic, saying, "In five years, I would like to attract 500,000 people to Nicoe and 500,000 to Unagi Pie Factory, for a total of 1 million people."