Japanese fastener specialist, Sunco Industries are at the forefront of the screw industry and are continuing to expand globally. They recently attended the Osaka EXPO 2025, where they shared their passion, knowledge, and culture with global visitors.
We interviewed the team at Sunco Industries about their presence at EXPO in Osaka, learning more about the innovative Japanese fastener company and how they operate within the industry.
Did you enjoy exhibiting at EXPO in Osaka this July?
We feel that this was a meaningful exhibition. Since this exhibition was mainly aimed at general customers who are not familiar with the screw industry, we took steps to deepen their understanding of screws, which is not something we usually focus on. Through hands-on workshops such as displaying a diorama of the EXPO Osaka 2025 venue recreated with screws and making screw key chains, we were able to delight many customers. The booth was bustling every day, and we received numerous positive comments on social media about our booth and the screw diorama.
Did you meet many customers and companies at the EXPO?
During the exhibition, our booth attracted a large number of visitors at all hours of the day. At peak times, there were even crowds of people who could not fit into the booth area. On the first day, the mayor of Higashi Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, where our distribution centre is located, visited the booth and gave a congratulatory speech.
How important are exhibitions and shows such as EXPO in Osaka for businesses in Japan?
I think that our exhibition at Osaka EXPO 2025 was a good opportunity for people in Japan to learn more about us and our screws. At fastener exhibitions, we often meet with people who are familiar with the screw industry, but this time we feel that we were able to make the general public aware of screws through our exhibition.
Did you present or launch any new products or services?
At our booth, we prepared a number of areas where visitors could touch, enjoy screws and deepen their understanding.
The centrepiece of the booth was a diorama made entirely from screws. This represented the venue for Osaka EXPO 2025 and featured over 1,600 screws. Visitors to the exhibition expressed their amazement at the fine detail and delicacy of the work and “It’s amazing how the details are so delicately rendered!” said one of the visitors.
Other visitors were given the chance to make their own screw key rings. In this workshop, visitors scooped screws with a spoon or chopsticks and stuffed them into a round case to make their own key rings. The workshop was very popular and the queue was always long.
The booth also offered a variety of other activities, including the distribution of the SOCKET BOY magazine and a photo session with SOCKET BOY, our mascot character, and Try-kun, the Higashi-Osaka City character.
Did visitors get the chance to meet SOCKET BOY at EXPO?
At the event, our character SOCKET BOY appeared at the booth and interacted with many visitors, who took commemorative photographs.
In addition, SOCKET BOY marched at the front of the parade on Japan Day 3 July, attracting a lot of media attention.
SOCKET BOY’s cheerful and friendly character brought smiles to the faces of visitors and the booth was filled with a friendly mood.
Can you tell us what was featured in the recent edition of the SOCKET BOY magazine?
The sixth issue, published in August 2025, includes a special feature on the Fastener Fair Global held in Germany in March this year and a new section, NEJIDO, which covers the past and future prospects of Japanese screw manufacturers. This edition has the largest number of pages so far, with a total of 20. The magazine also introduces the culture and history of Higashi-Osaka City, a city of manufacturing, making it another highly readable volume.
Will you be attending any other exhibitions or shows within the next year?
Although we have no current plans to attend exhibitions, we are considering distributing SOCKET BOY magazine at various events around the world, in the hope that many people will read the magazine. We are distributing SOCKET BOY at the Japanese American National Museum, an exhibition of old Japanese cars that is held in California, USA, from 31st July to 12th November 2025. The magazine is also distributed at the Fasten.it User Meeting in Italy organised by Fasten.it in October 2025.
Furthermore, the SOCKET BOY magazine’s website is scheduled to go live this summer, so everyone is welcome to read SOCKET BOY. If you would like a paper copy of the magazine, we will send it to you by post free of charge.
What are your future plans for your new YouTube channel ‘Sunco Quality Quest’?
Our YouTube channel Sunco Quality Quest gives a behind-the-scenes look at how products we take for granted are made. We covered a leather shoe workshop in the first video, a glass workshop in the second and an umbrella workshop in the third.
We create videos on a daily basis in the hope that viewers will discover the world of craftsmanship, where the thoughts and passions of craftspeople are put into products they normally use without thinking about it. We plan to continue to bring you many more videos on this channel that you would not normally be able to see, which are a bit unusual and unexpected. Stay tuned for more videos in the future.
What makes Sunco different from other fastener and fixing companies?
Since its foundation in 1946, Sunco Industries has been at the forefront of the screw industry, pioneering the use of IT in the industry, managing plated product inventories and developing trivalent plated products. In recent years, the company has strengthened its response system for ‘shipment of products in small boxes or smaller’, i.e. delivery from a single piece, to respond flexibly to the diverse needs of its customers. Our logistics centres utilise a proprietary mathematical model to realise a distribution system unparalleled in the industry, which is both systemised and labour-saving.
Furthermore, the business model developed in Japan has been extended overseas, building a system for the prompt and safe delivery of goods across borders. We currently have approximately 1,300 suppliers and 6,000 customers in Japan, as well as 70 overseas customers.
A big thank you to the team at Sunco for answering our questions and sharing their Osaka EXPO 2025 experience with us. We look forward to reading the next edition of SOCKET BOY magazine.
Contact here:
+81 6 6539 3560
export@sunco.co.jp
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