‘Maximising corporate value’: Asahi hopes massive group restructure will enhance advantages across four key markets
Japanese beer giant Asahi expressed hope that its large-scale group restructuring strategy to establish individual regional headquarters would maximise its competitive advantages across its four major markets.
Asahi conducted a wide-scale restructuring of its business governance, including the establishment of a six-person Executive Committee as well as separate regional headquarters with individual CEOs across its four key markets in Japan, Europe, Oceania and South East Asia.
“In 2024, we will begin a transition towards our new phase of growth, with a focus on further globalisation,” Asahi Group CEO and President Atsushi Katsuki said.
“[This will be] driven by the strengthening of our group governance, including the initiation of Asahi Global Procurement and the transformation of our management structure.
“The aim is to maximise corporate value beyond just the sum of our regional businesses, to bolster global brands as the driving force of our premium strategy through global partnerships.”
Fresh opportunities: Japanese seafood exporters look to new markets to hit ‘5 trillion yen’ target after China ban
Japanese officials and seafood exporters joined forces to explore new overseas markets earlier this year in response to China’s earlier import ban in the wake of the Fukushima wastewater release.
At the FoodEx 2024 show in Tokyo, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) held a networking reception party to support businesses that wanted to develop new overseas sales channels due to the treated wastewater issue.
In August 2023, China enforced a ban on seafood imports from Japan when the latter began releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
The Japanese government said the discharge was necessary in order to decommission of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. It has frequently cited that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sanctioned this action and deemed it safe
However, it led to an immediate 76% drop in shipments year-on-year to China, with only 2.2 billion yen (US$14.7 million) worth of products exported, down from 9 billion yen in August 2022 (US$60 million), data from Japan’s Finance Ministry showed.
In a bid to drum up new business, MAFF and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) set up over 1,000 meetings at FoodEx, and deployed a raft of marketing strategies to drive additional sales.
Cracking the code: Kikkoman develops data-backed flavour pairing system to localise products for Indian market
Japanese brand Kikkoman has used research and data to identify Indian ingredients that are best paired with its soy sauce, in an effort to accelerate product development and further penetrate the local market.
The firm has devised a system called KIP (Kikkoman Ingredients x Seasoning Pairing), which “scientifically evaluates” the taste compatibility of its signature soy sauce with Indian ingredients and seasonings.
“India is known for its unique food culture, including vegetarianism and extensive use of spices and herbs. It also has the largest population in the world. Understanding Indian cuisine is important for global food companies and has been one of Kikkoman’s goals since entering the market two years ago.
“Flavour pairing is a method for identifying the compatibility of foods based on their aroma and taste characteristics. We conducted a study to find out how Indian ingredients and seasonings work together by making some modifications to the traditional flavour-pairing method. This system has enabled us to scientifically prove combinations that are preferred in India,” Harry Hakuei Kosato, Director of Kikkoman India, told FoodNavigator-Asia.
In addition, the KIP system would allow Kikkoman to develop new products specifically tailored for the market based on data, and not guesswork or intuition.
Supply and demand: Ajinomoto and Meiji among Japanese brands to focus on inventory management to cut food waste
Major Japanese brands Ajinomoto and Meiji highlighted how efficient inventory management were key to reducing food waste throughout their supply chains, as part of their commitment to the national Food Loss Reduction Declaration.
The Food Loss Reduction Declaration is led by the local Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) in Japan. As of November 2023, CAA had secured commitments from over 100 local businesses to reduce food loss and food waste in their operations.
One of these was dairy giant Meiji, which opted to utilise new expiration date labelling and inventory management to achieve this.
“[Meiji commits to] reduce the amount of wastage in our domestic food business by more than 50% (compared to FY2016) by FY2025,” Meiji President and CEO Kazuo Kawamura declared to CAA via a formal statement.
“[This will be achieved by first] improving the accuracy of our product supply and demand, thus reducing our inventory of [excess or] defective products.
“We have also switched the best-before date display labels on our products to the ‘Year/Month’ format, which [we believe will be effective] to reduce food loss throughout the supply chain; and have also improved the expiration dates [system] to reduce food waste from expired food [that has an expired date but is still in good condition].”
Another major food brand that went down this route was amino acid specialist firm Ajinomoto, which also committed to reduce food loss in its operations by 50%.
“Our main value chain initiatives will be to improve production efficiency and strengthen our demand forecasting, as well as [work with the government on] displaying the new best-before dates,” Ajinomoto President Taro Fujie stated.
Umami boost: Kirin’s electric spoon aims to reduce excessive salt intake among Japanese population
Kirin released a spoon earlier this year that uses electricity to intensify the umami taste of food to address the issue of excessive salt intake among the Japanese population.
Launched under the firm’s Health Science domain, the Electric Salt Spoon uses a “unique current waveform” that enhances the perceived salty flavour when eating low-sodium foods.
The technology was developed through joint research with Dr Homei Miyashita from the Department of Frontier Media Science in Meiji University’s School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences.
According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey 2019 published by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), the daily salt intake of Japanese adults is 10.9g for men and 9.3g for women, which is significantly higher than WHO’s recommended intake of 5g.
“Excessive salt intake can lead to the onset and increased severity of lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension and chronic kidney disease, and has become a major public health issue.
“In order to achieve the target amounts (less than 8g and less than 7g per day for adult men and women respectively) set by the MHLW, it is necessary to reduce current salt intake in the Japanese diet by more than 20%. However, many people find low-sodium diets to be bland, and this has been a hurdle to maintaining such diets,” Sumiko Oi from Kirin’s Corporate Communications Department told FoodNavigator-Asia.
In an online survey conducted by the firm, approximately 47% of all respondents were eating a low-sodium diet or intended to do so, of which about 60% “had issues with” low-sodium foods, and of which approximately 80% were dissatisfied with the taste.
Plant-based progress? Japan’s NEXT MEATS touts cleaner labels but better texture and taste
Tokyo-based NEXT MEATS has claimed that its product offers several advantages over existing plant-based products, including improved taste and texture despite minimal use of ingredients, and being ambient storage-friendly.
The firm unveiled the soy protein-based meat alternative named NEXT BEEF 1.0 at a trade fair in Thailand earlier this year.
“Based on feedback given to our plant-based short rib and skirt steak, we worked on improving the texture and taste during the development of NEXT BEEF 1.0.
“We put some of it into Japanese curry, and the response was very positive — everything that we prepared were wiped out by visitors at the event,” Mitsuru Anthony Ueno, chief operating officer of NEXT MEATS USA, told FoodNavigator-Asia.
According to Ueno, the product is primarily made of soy protein, water and sunflower oil, and can be stored at room temperature for up to 12 months.
“Our partner company in Japan specialises in canned food and is equipped with technology to preserve food without using any chemical preservatives.
“Furthermore, the cost of shipping frozen food products is extremely high. As we are looking to expand into markets in Europe, US, India, and South East Asia (SEA), we decided to make an ambient product to facilitate exportation and to be more price competitive.”
Dairy updates: Japan to implement more stringent standards for non-chilled milk products this year
The Japanese government announced plans earlier this year to implement more stringent standards for milk products that do not require chilling, meaning that exporters of these items would need additional certificates from the country of origin before being allowed into the market.
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) published a ministerial proposal to amend dairy standards affecting milk and dairy products that do not require storage at temperatures below 10°C or are permitted to be stored at room temperature.
This included regular milks, modified milks, low-fat milks, skim milks, processed milks, liquid milk preparations and other milk-based beverages.
“Based on the deliberations of the Milk, Meat and Fishery Subcommittee of the Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food Sanitation Council, new regulations will be established for [these] products,” MHLW stated.
“These will generally be milk products that have been sterilised and aseptically packaged, or packaged and then sterilised – specific standards that cover microorganism testing, manufacturing methods, and sterilisation records will be established for both.
“There will also be regulations for manufacturers to maintain records regarding this sterilisation, where records from self-recording thermometers must be stored for a reasonable period of time that also takes into account the time until actual consumption.”
Bottoms up: Japan’s Umami Cola looks to upend category with botanical-rich, koji-sweetened beverage
Japan-based Umami Cola highlighted plans to turn the cola category on its head with its botanical-rich, koji-sweetened formulation and an inverted can design.
Facing immense competition from big cola players in Japan, Umami Cola has stated hopes that its formulation and packaging would help it stand out.
“Beverage is an enormous market as most consumers will need non-alcoholic beverages for their entire lives, but these are relatively lower in cost in Japan so consumers tend to just purchase as-is without thinking too much – so in this market, most brand successes belong only to the big companies,” Umami Cola Founder Yamada Takahisa said.
“So, in order to stand out, we decided that we have to be completely different and really change the perspective of consumers as to what cola can be – one of the most radical ways we came up with was to basically turn the can design upside down, meaning that the tab to open it is located at the bottom of the can instead of the top.
“We also added the key feature of placing our ingredients list on a front-of-pack position and putting these in large font so that consumers won’t need to strain and search for these – this is not only transparent but also shows our confidence in the ingredients we are using to make Umami Cola.
“This product also clearly stands apart from other colas because it specifically requests consumers to ‘shake before consumption’ – soft drinks in general are not mixed or shaken, but here we definitely want consumers to do so as we use many ingredients to make our products, including real herbs and spices which tend to form a sediment at the bottom of the can, and we are proud of this as it shows that we definitely use real ingredients.”
Counterfeit countermeasures: Japan taps digital monitoring technology to crack down on fraudulent agri-food exports
The Japanese government cracked down on counterfeit agri-food product exports protected under the Geographical Indication (GI) scheme with the use of digital monitoring technology.
According to OECD data, Japan ranked seventh in terms of countries most affected by counterfeit activity, with some JPY74.1bn (US$492.7mn) of this attributable to counterfeit food products.
“Processed food products are a particularly important export sector for Japan as it makes up about JPY771.1bn (US$7.15bn) in export value and Japanese companies have a 2.2% global market share of this segment,” the Japan Patent Office said via a formal report.
“Other major segments are alcoholic drinks (JPY432.3bn/US$4bn) and soft drinks (JPY217.9bn/US$2.02bn) where Japanese companies hold 5.2% and 2.6% of the respective global market shares.
“These three categories have also been found to be amongst the top most-counterfeited export products, costing us well over JPY136bn (US$904mn) in losses as of 2021.
“Surveys with local manufacturers have revealed that many of these counterfeits are still being manufactured in China and the means of concealing the production and sales of these items have become more sophisticated over the years.
“For instance, some of these are mass-produced in China but the logo is exported separately and [only] affixed in the country of sale so technically there is no infringement of the trademark [for the majority of the process] and enforcement can only be carried out for a short time after the logo is attached and before it goes on sale.”
Japan’s Aiya eyes growth opportunities in Middle East’s nascent matcha market
Japan-headquartered Aiya has been looking to seize growth opportunities in the Middle East, where the matcha market is still in its infancy and has significant room for expansion.
Aiya is a leading matcha producer with offices around the world, including China, Thailand, England, Germany, France and Austria.
“We are working on the Middle East as a long-term strategy. Just two years ago, I had to explain what matcha is during the Gulfood trade show. Today, people are looking for matcha. They now know that it’s healthy and good for them, which is good for our business.
“Our aim is to bring matcha into every supermarket, every coffee shop, and every home. We strongly believe that matcha is the healthiest of all teas, having 10 to 15 times more nutrients than regular green tea,” Thomas Gromer, CEO of Aiya Europe, told FoodNavigator-Asia.
The firm has been predominantly focusing on B2B sales channels, such as food service companies, juice bars, cafes and restaurants.
“When people experience a new drink and they like it, they would want to have it at home. That’s when we take the second step to do B2C. We have a range of tea latte mixes, which you can simply add milk of your choice and enjoy it at home. These ready mix products are very convenient.”
