Director Roundtable (CEO × Director, Executive Officer, Executive Vice President & CTO  × Outside Director)

With Customer-Centricity at the core, we will strengthen our management foundation and advance a scientific approach
as we pursue new value creation through enhanced profitability, human capital, and governance.

External Environment Changes and the Direction of Our Response

FY2025 presented a challenging external environment, with rising raw material prices, yen depreciation, declining meal value, and continued increases in infrastructure-related costs, including materials, energy, logistics, and labor costs. Against this backdrop, the Group focused on completing price revisions and operational transformation while giving top priority to ensuring stable supply. However, we expect to fall short of the financial targets originally set. Going forward, in addition to restoring profitability in the near term, we need to implement more fundamental measures, including strengthening our core earnings power and reviewing our business structure, to realize our medium- to long-term growth strategy.
At the same time, the customer base we have built over many years, our technological and marketing capabilities, and our ability to create value, as represented by “Oishisa Design,^​” are sources of our competitive advantage. We will build on these strengths to drive our next stage of growth.

Amid a rapidly changing business environment, we must respond quickly and flexibly. On the technology front, we have contributed to the steady growth of our existing businesses. At the same time, I believed there was room for improvement in terms of our contribution to new businesses and medium- to long-term growth. One factor was that our development organizations and sites were divided by business, preventing us from fully realizing synergies through collaboration between the Oils and Fats Business and the Specialty Food Products Business. Accordingly, in FY2025 we reorganized and integrated our R&D organization, establishing a structure capable of responding quickly and flexibly to rapid changes in the business environment by realizing greater synergies. In FY2026, we will proceed with the integration and relocation of our sites, accelerating the realization of synergies and strengthening our responsiveness to contribute to medium-term growth.

Uncertainty has increased further in recent years, but given the characteristics of the Group’s businesses, we need to regard various forms of change as a given. The Board of Directors shares this recognition and has repeatedly discussed change from the perspective of transforming it into competitive advantage rather than avoiding it. We are working to strengthen a structure that clearly prioritizes the issues we need to address and enables flexible and rapid decision-making. I believe steadily advancing our response to these changes will lead to enhanced value over the medium to long term. 

Pursuing Greater Resilience in Our Core Businesses through Customer-Centricity

Based on this understanding of our current situation, in this year marking the 200th anniversary of the founding of our predecessor companies, we decided to return once again to our roots. Those roots lie in Customer-Centricity, the foundation of business that all three predecessor companies valued. We will accurately identify customer needs based on objective data and create value from them. We will place this approach at the center of Group management.
On that basis, we will evolve our core businesses into a stable earnings base—a “cash cow”—by transforming business processes, including through the use of dX, and pursuing thorough efficiency improvements. We will allocate the management resources generated through greater efficiency in our core businesses to the focus areas selected to achieve medium- to long-term growth. Through these initiatives, we intend to steadily transform our business structure and further enhance corporate value.

In our core Oils and Fats Business, we will use dX to optimize operations across the entire Company. As dX Promotion Leader, I will advance efficiency improvements throughout the supply chain, including labor saving and automation at production sites, greater efficiency in R&D, price simulations, assessment of marketing investment returns, and improved visibility across logistics operations. We regard these initiatives not simply as efficiency measures, but as business transformation that will raise the competitiveness of the business itself. By shifting from reliance on past experience to data-driven decision-making, we will strengthen our ability to respond to changes in the environment and build a stable earnings base.

Corporate culture is also an important factor in advancing these transformation initiatives. While the Group’s strength in emphasizing safety and security, as well as quality, is something we must preserve, changing areas that we have been unable to change in the past requires a transformation in the mindset of each and every employee. The starting point is to clearly define and embed our vision for the future. I appreciate that management is redefining what the Company should aspire to be and communicating this carefully and repeatedly to people on the front lines. Signs of change are steadily beginning to emerge.

Enhancing the Business Portfolio by Clarifying Focus Areas

To achieve medium- to long-term growth, we have identified three focus areas: Evolution into a Comprehensive Solution Designer, Addressing Unmet Consumer Needs, and Contributing to Sustainability. Building on our core strengths—including the Group’s technological expertise and broad customer base—these focus areas closely align with our existing businesses and offer significant growth potential. In Evolution into a Comprehensive Solution Designer, we will go beyond simply providing conventional oils and fats and starch products and play a deeper role in creating great taste, thereby providing unprecedented value in solving customer issues. In Addressing Unmet Consumer Needs, we will respond to increasingly diverse consumer needs in areas such as health, time savings, and experiences. In Contributing to Sustainability, we will position our contribution to environmental and social value as a clear source of differentiation. 

Based on these three focus areas, we have also begun taking action in technology development. For Evolution into a Comprehensive Solution Designer, we are advancing two approaches: one scientifically analyzes customer needs and connects them to value creation, while the other breaks down “good taste” into its constituent factors and quantifies them, enabling us to evaluate products and propose improvements. Neither is an easy undertaking, but through these approaches we aim to quantify “good taste” and combine the resulting insights with our technological capabilities to address customers’ latent needs. 
For Addressing Unmet Consumer Needs, we have begun technology and product development in areas where the Oils and Fats Business and Specialty Food Products Business overlap, as well as in adjacent domains. We expect the integration and relocation of our R&D sites to be completed in FY2026, and the resulting synergies to accelerate the delivery of tangible results. 
In the area of Contributing to Sustainability, we are developing the “Cho Toku^​” series of long-lasting oils and Kamiraku Pack ^​paper-carton oil, while also pursuing medium-term development initiatives related to SAF, and aim to generate results at an early stage by accelerating their development. At the same time, from the perspective of simultaneously contributing to sustainability and achieving corporate growth, I believe we need to develop more advanced products and services, and in FY2026 we will make these initiatives more concrete.

Based on my management experience at national retail chains, I believe that, in providing value as a partner to customers, a scientific approach based on quantitative data is important in addition to experience and qualitative information. Through these initiatives, I expect us to evolve “Oishisa Design,^​” earn greater recognition from our customers and translate that recognition into growth.

By allocating management resources to the three focus areas, we intend to enhance our business portfolio. Specifically, we will expand into adjacent domains by leveraging synergies with existing businesses, including downstream expansion based on our existing Oils and Fats and Specialty Food Products businesses, maximizing the value of oilseed meal and by-products, and expanding “Oishisa Design^​” into ASEAN.
To increase speed and strengthen execution capabilities in growth areas, it is essential that we strategically acquire technologies and business platforms through external partnerships and M&A. We will accelerate the enhancement of our portfolio while making disciplined investments in priority areas.

From the perspective of an engineer, I believe the Group possesses technologies of an extremely high standard. At the same time, I see considerable scope to further develop these strengths. Specifically, by combining technologies cultivated in different businesses and domains across organizational boundaries, we can create new added value. We need to further enhance the potential of our technologies by connecting the value they provide to customers more directly to business growth and earnings. As we expand into adjacent domains, I believe our existing technological foundation itself will be an important driver.

In connecting the enhancement of our portfolio and our technological foundation to business growth, it is important not only to create high-value-added products, but also to design how and to whom those products are delivered, thereby maximizing value across the entire business portfolio. In high-value-added markets such as olive oil, for example, products are accepted and chosen even at price levels different from those of general products. In such areas, we need to more effectively communicate added value in ways that capture the reasons behind consumers' choices. Achieving this requires organic collaboration across the entire organization.

We are currently formulating the next Medium-Term Business Plan. With a focus on pursuing greater resilience in our core businesses and establishing the three focus areas, we are considering specific business development initiatives and roadmaps, together with the investment policies needed to realize them. In particular, with the enhancement of our business portfolio in mind, we are emphasizing the development of a more effective plan while appropriately allocating management resources based on the balance between risk and return. We plan to present the details when the plan is announced next May.

Evolution of Corporate Governance and the Board of Directors

We are implementing various initiatives to strengthen corporate governance. From the perspective of the Board of Directors, as also set out in the Corporate Governance Code, we believe it is important to create an environment that supports appropriate risk-taking by management. From this perspective, we are discussing how to create an environment that supports sound risk-taking, including the ideal form of a monitoring board for a company with an Audit & Supervisory Board.
Specifically, to enhance discussions concerning long-term growth, we are reviewing the prioritization of agenda items and allocation of time to ensure sufficient opportunities for discussion. While keeping routine reports concise, we deepen discussions of long-term themes based on an annual schedule. These initiatives have also resulted in improvements in evaluations of the effectiveness of the Board of Directors.

We have established a structure in which necessary information is shared in a timely and appropriate manner, enabling discussions based on clear priorities. As an Outside Director, I intend to continue contributing to constructive discussions that enhance corporate value.

Advancing Human Capital Management

To achieve medium- to long-term growth, it is extremely important to create an environment that maximizes the potential of employees—in other words, to advance human capital management. Human capital management encompasses areas including talent development, health and productivity management and well-being, and DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Of these, I currently regard talent development as the most important theme. Through the Human Capital Committee established in FY2025, we are developing talent capable of realizing our growth strategy, including by establishing a foundation for developing next-generation management talent. We also monitor the employee engagement score as one indicator for measuring the results of these initiatives. Although challenges remained in FY2025, all indicators improved year on year. We will continue advancing initiatives to achieve further improvement.

In the R&D department, ahead of other departments, we further subdivided our existing competency map and evaluated all researchers. In FY2026, we plan to use those evaluations as the basis for training and personnel rotations. Going forward, we will expand this initiative throughout the Company. Developing expertise is important, but we also need mechanisms that bring together people with different backgrounds to generate co-creation. We aim for the R&D division to lead the way.

I feel that our current human capital management initiatives still have some aspects that are somewhat oriented toward disclosure. What is fundamentally important is the question of why these initiatives are necessary. It is people who will realize the Medium-Term Business Plan we are now formulating, and it is important to execute human capital strategies—including recruitment, training, allocation, and evaluation—that are integrated with management strategy. I believe we need to shift in this direction going forward.

The Company We Aim to Be

The Group has established “Joy for Life^​— Bringing Joy to the Future by Food”^​ as its vision for the future and positions it as the most important concept in management. Based on the knowledge we have accumulated as a company that has supported Japan’s food culture over many years, we want to contribute at a global level to people’s lives, including health, the environment, and the sustainability of food resources. Even as we anticipate major changes in the external environment, we will stay ahead of changes in society and take on the challenge of creating new value through innovation.

Until now, our approach to creating innovation has been primarily product-driven, and I believe engineers in particular have tended strongly in this direction. Going forward, engineers also need to create innovation with the market in mind. In addition to developing talent capable of doing so, we will use AI and other technologies to understand changes in the market, increase the speed and quality of value creation, and generate innovation.

 I believe that “to live is to eat.” As a company that supports food infrastructure, it is important for the Group to remain an indispensable and irreplaceable presence in society. I hope we will steadily enhance corporate value while also becoming a company where each and every person who works here can genuinely feel happy and take pride in what they do.