Food is the second largest manufacturing industry in Japan following the machine industry. It accounts for 10 percent of the manufacturing industry in terms of the number of offices and employees as well as market scale. However, if you look at details regarding the industry, it becomes apparent that the food industry is divided into an extremely large number of categories, and there are a very large number of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Another feature of the Japanese food industry is that it contains many companies with long histories and traditions. Kikkoman Corporation, Japan's largest soy sauce manufacturer that has a 30 percent share of the market, was founded in 1917. Ajinomoto Co., Inc., the largest domestic producer of seasonings, was established in 1925. Morinaga & Co., Ltd., one of the Japanese majors in the snacks sector, was founded in 1910. Kirin Brewery Company, Limited, which has the second largest share of the Japanese beer market, was established in 1907.
These companies were originally founded as family businesses that produced soy sauce, snacks, etc. They later expanded together with the growth of the Japanese economy and the improvement and Westernization of the Japanese diet. For this reason, they basically remain dependent on a single product line and compare poorly to American and European food manufacturers in terms of globalization and diversification. Even in the case of Ajinomoto, which is currently the top general food manufacturer (founded as a maker of the monosodium glutamate or MSG seasoning) in Japan, sales are still under 10 billion dollars (slightly over 1 trillion yen). One cannot help but feel that companies in the food industry in Japan have gotten a late start over global leaders such as Nestle S.A. (54.2 billion dollars in sales), Kraft Foods Inc. (29.7 billion dollars in sales) and Unilever PLC (25.7 billion dollars in sales). |
