Kazuo Kawamura: Two of Japan’s major food groups, Meiji Seika and Meiji Dairies, merged under the newly formed Meiji Holdings in 2009. In 2011, the food businesses regrouped as Meiji Co Ltd with a pharmaceutical sister company, Meiji Seika Pharma Co Ltd under Meiji Holdings.
As head of Meiji Co Ltd, my responsibilities cover everything from dairy, confectionery, infant nutrition, frozen foods and sports nutrition to medical-use foods. My background is in the dairy business, but my present role is as president of a company offering food products that meet the needs of every age group, from infants to the elderly.
Kazuo Kawamura: The Japanese market is a mature dairy market facing the same opportunities and challenges as in many Western countries. Fluid milk consumption has been flat for a number of years, but yogurt, cheese and functional dairy products have shown strong growth and continue to be areas of opportunity for the innovative Japanese dairy sector.
Kazuo Kawamura: As I mentioned, we consider ourselves a food products company with major brands in many different product categories, and touching the lives of almost all Japanese in one way or another. However, we are probably best known in the dairy and confectionery areas, where we are the largest dairy products company and the largest chocolate company.
In the dairy area, our major brands are Oishii Gyunyu or ‘Delicious Milk’ (the bestselling milk brand in Japan), Bulgaria Yogurt (the bestselling yogurt brand in Japan), LG21 Probiotic Yogurt (the bestselling probiotic yogurt in Japan) and R-1 Probiotic Yogurt, and RakuRaku Cube – a compressed infant formula.
The former Meiji Dairies Company focused on health, but following the merger with Meiji Seika Company (confectionery), the focus on taste and enjoyment has become even more important than in the past.
In the new company, we continue to learn a great deal from one another about how to provide the consumer with a complete experience – great taste, enjoyment and nutrition – from a company that places its highest priority on safety and reliability.
Kazuo Kawamura: Innovation is absolutely essential for our company. Not only is added value essential in order for products to be profitable, but extremely quick product turnover in stores makes competition for shelf space extremely intense.
Private branding is also increasing in Japan, making it ever more important for companies to bolster their brand with unique value that competitors cannot offer.
Kazuo Kawamura: Although we try to focus on finished products, Meiji is one of the world’s largest providers of prebiotics (both fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and a proprietary ingredient ‘Profec’). In Japan, we also offer a number of functional products, from probiotic supplements to clinically validated extracts derived from Chinese medicines.
Kazuo Kawamura: Probiotics, because dairy is the perfect probiotic carrier and dairy companies already have an image closely associated with health, good taste and technological capabilities. We are the largest yogurt and probiotics company in Japan and we see this as an area ripe for continued growth.
Kazuo Kawamura: Meiji’s significant innovations are not always functional in nature. Oishii Gyunyu, the bestselling milk brand in Japan, relies on proprietary technology that avoids the development of off-tastes that can occur during pasteurisation.
Our compressed, tablet-form infant formula RakuRaku Cube has been a tremendous success and relies on proprietary technology developed by Meiji. We also use our experience and knowledge to extend the benefits of dairy to other areas where nutrition is key, such as our new high-protein milk drink, Sports Milk, as well as a variety of medical use foods.
Kazuo Kawamura: The rapidly ageing society in Japan is resulting in many older consumers who frequently live alone, eat smaller portions and do not cook for themselves. Packaging innovations to make products the optimal size and easier to handle are important. However, nutrition is also very important and dairy is perfectly suited to meet this need.
The majority of older adults do not consume adequate protein or calcium. Dairy can help meet these needs. Speciality needs can be met with increasingly popular nutrition-dense foods or medical-use foods. Several years ago, Meiji opened a large factory dedicated to medical-use foods.
Kazuo Kawamura: Our largest market remains Japan, where our products can be found in practically every supermarket and convenience store. In confectionery, we have an international presence across Asia and even in the Europe and North America. In Dairy, we have made moves in recent years to increase our presence throughout Asia.
CP Meiji, a group company and the largest dairy products manufacturer in Thailand, recently had a very successful introduction of our Bulgaria Yogurt. So, we are taking some of the brands that have been so successful in Japan to other markets too.
Kazuo Kawamura: Safety and reliability are extremely important to any food company. Meiji has recently initiated an internal system called Meiji Quality Comm for assuring the safety, consistency and reliability of all our products.
We want to continue to be an innovative company, but we also want our customers to be able to feed their families our products knowing that, for us, safety comes first.
Kazuo Kawamura: Instead of simply responding to customer demand, Meiji and other Japanese companies have been successful at developing new value that the consumer could not have anticipated and therefore would not have resulted from marketing surveys.
The Japanese consumer is typically very intelligent and can therefore respond to new products based on scientific or technological developments.
Dairy continues to have a great deal of potential. Having faith in your customers and building mutually beneficial relationships is one important way to move forward.
Kazuo Kawamura: The regulations, development and potential future demand in Asian countries can differ dramatically.
Japan is a mature market with a shrinking, increasingly older population. Special nutrition and added function will definitely be needed here. On the other hand, the rapidly growing demand for milk in China will affect worldwide dairy markets and not just Asian markets. Proposed trade agreements could also affect dairy trade and prices in Asia.
Kazuo Kawamura: Probiotics and the increasing need for elderly nutrition and medical foods are two very important areas for Meiji going forward. We have built large, new factories to add to our previous capacity in both these areas.
Universal design is also very important due to Japan’s ageing population. Having products that are the right size, as well as easy to understand, handle and open, is absolutely essential.
Kazuo Kawamura: We have a great deal of R&D capabilities within the company. However, we do collaborate with a number of Japanese universities and research institutes, as well as with researchers outside Japan.
We have had numerous research collaborations in various Asian countries, North and South America and Europe. For instance, a project on the health benefits of yogurt is being conducted with the Pasteur Institute in France.
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