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< Example 3 >
| Shokuyo No Mori Toyama , Inc. (Tateyama-cho, Toyama Prefecture) |
Promoting the Spread of Ideal Health Foods Based on Uncleaned Rice and Grains |
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#Company name:
Shokuyo No Mori Toyama, Inc.
#Representative
Fumiko Matsumura (age 61)
#Business area
Manufacture and sale of drinks and foods
#Year of foundation/incorporation
February 2002
#Work force
9 workers (including 7 part-timers)
#Capital
9.05 million yen
#Yearly turnover |
1. Geographical location of the company
Tateyama-cho is a thin and long area located from the middle to the southeastern part of the prefecture. It is a town with a population of 28,525 and an area of 307 square kilometers with the Peaks of Tateyama, which are known as one of Japan's big three sacred mountain ranges, the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route, which is crowded with as many as 1.5 million tourists, and the Shomyo Waterfall with a head of 350 meters. The mountainous area has varied geographical features, while the plain has a fertile area. Its key industries are agriculture and forestry, while it engages in such agricultural products as rice, vegetables, and fruit trees. In 1989, the town declared itself as "a town of green reformation&" to the world. It commits itself actively to environmental conservation. |
2. Markets for natural foods and chemical-free and low-chemical foods
There are now restaurants using chemical-free and low-chemical fresh foods and convenience stores (such as Natural Lawson) which sell box lunches, sandwiches, and other items based on such food items. Chemical-free and low-chemical fresh foods are increasing as high-value-added products these days and distributed in the market at prices several times as high as those of ordinary fresh foods. |
3. Main business areas, characteristics, and relationships with the local commercial and industrial associations and the prefectural federation
(1) Characteristics of the products
The company manufactures box lunch based mainly on organic low-chemical food items (above all, unrefined rice, millet, foxtail millet, and other grains), along with pressed sushi "Pressed sushi of Tateyama with Chinese herbal medicine and five cereals" and rice balls. Uncleaned rice and grains are rich in vegetable fibers and vitamin B-1 and have high nutritious value. It increases good cholesterol, prevents atopy and lifestyle-related illnesses, develops chewing force, prevents jaw degeneration, and produces various other effects. Box lunch is manufactured without white sugar or monosodium glutamate and uses naturally-brewed seasonings. Box lunch is sold for four prices: 350, 400, 500, and 600 yen. Pressed sushi sells for 1,100 yen (small servings come in cases of two pieces of sushi, each case selling for 150 yen). Box lunch containers are not made of Styrofoam (thus preventing the generation of dioxins), but of containers made of kenaf (reed pulp) from suppliers of Ehime Prefecture. The company has now applied for patents for manufacturing rice for "Pressed sushi of Tateyama with Chinese herbal medicine and five cereals" made without sugar or chemical seasonings.
(2) Purchase
The company commissions the production of millet, udo, and other edible wild plants, vegetables, rice with the germ, foxtail millet, adzuki bean, wheat, and other grains to more than 20 local contract farmers with low-chemical and organic agricultural processes and purchases them directly from such suppliers. Purchases from farmers employed as part-timers account for 80% of the purchases, with the gross profit of box lunch being 70%. Naturally brewed condiments are priced five to six times as high as ordinary products. But they are reduced in cost for the use of local rice and vegetables.
(3) Manufacturing flow and buyers
The processing factory attached to the offices manufactures 300 to 500 servings of box lunch, sushi, and other food items a day on the average, and delivers them, upon order, to IT companies, bed manufacturers, hotels and other private companies, along with kindergartens, prefectural government, New Century Organization (the prefecture's supporting center), commercial and industrial associations, foundations, and other organizations. |
4. How the agency was founded and how it relates to commercial and industrial associations and prefectural federations
(1) Brief personal history of the founder
The founder retired as employee of the Toyama Prefectural Government in March 2001. While in office, he visited farming households about 20 days a month as specialist technician for rural life and carried out related tasks, thus helping to spread agricultural technology and enhance the lives of farmers. He functioned in such positions as director of the Toyama Prefectural Center of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery.
(2) Motives for foundation
As she worked for many years to support the disposal and processing of agricultural and forestry products as an employee of the prefectural government, Ms. Matsumora came to note the high nutritious values of grains. As she gave guidance as a technician for rural life, she noticed that the labor environment and health problems of agricultural employees could partly be improved by limiting the use of agricultural chemicals. She then began to suspect that atopy, allergies, and other diseases of our times could be due to eating habits where people are accustomed to cleaned rice, along with agricultural chemicals and additives, and started to incorporate natural foods in the eating habits in her own home. Ms. Matsumura says that her experiences with the trying of brown rice mixed with adzuki beans and healthy tea, along with other food items, has led her to acquire the knowledge of the menus she now offers. Since she came to find the physical conditions of her family becoming better since she switched to natural foods, she came to intend to promote the cultivation of chemical-free and low-chemical vegetables and rice and the consumption of grains on a wide scale. She wished that children in particular, who will be the next-generation players in the future, would eat chemical-free vegetables and fruits when they want to each them whole. She feared that meals containing monosodium glutamate would hamper the children's normal improvement of their sense of taste. Her such great interest in learning the functions and effects of foods that she calls herself a "food nerd" of the prefectural government, together with her desire to work all her life and her strong wish to make the prefectural citizens aware of the goodness of eating habits based on low-chemical grains, above all, she decided to start a box lunch shop for natural foods after retirement.
(3) Actions taken so far by the company and its relationships with the local commercial and industrial associations and prefectural federation
After her retirement from the prefectural government in March 2001, she worked as a conductor of the management structure at the Toyama Prefectural Agricultural Conference, an association for supporting the management of the agricultural production organization and resigned in December that year. Ms. Matsumura lured people that agreed to manufacturing natural foods through a farmers' network that she had cultivated. Her invitation was responded to by 16 persons, who contributed 9.05 million yen in as short a time as a week. Some 80 percent of the contributors knew all along that Ms. Matsumura asserted the importance of eating habits. In the next month, January 2002, she started to prepare for establishing her box lunch shop and managed to put her business into operation in February as a result of her almost sleepless efforts while receiving the support of the prefectural New Century Organization in drafting her business plan and financial balance plan. Approval given by the prefectural government as per the Act for Promoting Creative Activities in January supplied a nice tailwind for the foundation of her company. President Matsumura says that she worked as if ready to work 47 hours a day, looking back on those days.
Funding for the foundation of the company was based on a Fund for Supporting Women and Middle-aged and Senior Citizen Entrepreneurs granted by the National Life Finance Corporation, as recommended by the North Small and Mid-sized Companies Support Center of the Toyama Prefecture. He was also recommended to use a Program for Loaning Equipment to Small Companies to lease refrigerators and cooking utensils and equipment. After that, she used an expert dispatch program offered by the Small and Mid-sized Companies Support Center of the Toyama Prefecture, and received guidance on how to organize and establish a business plan, sales plan, investment plan, market survey, and internal system, open up distribution channels, improve methods of sale, and sell goods on the Internet, homepage, and other IT methods. In addition to individual guidance offered by instructors from the Tateyama-cho Commercial and Industrial Association, her company received support by the dispatch of experts on how to create trademarks and logos, register trademarks, and apply for patents. After she opened up her business, the commercial and industrial association recommended her organization to use a loan from the Native Life Finance Corporation in order to procure a fund of 15 million yen required to build a processing plant (attached to the offices). |
5. Current challenges
Ms. Matsumura is working hard to find a good way to secure repeaters. Her organization checks if fresh vegetables, which are raw materials, are cultivated with low doses of chemicals and conducts product and hygiene control carefully, in an attempt to secure food security, and uses such inventive ideas as collecting information about customer grievances. The frequency of questionnaires regarding box lunch has reached 500 since the foundation of her organization. |
6. Future prospects
Ms. Matsumura's organization now sells 350 servings of box lunch and 100 servings of sushi, thus achieving 2.5 million yen on the monthly average. Ms. Matsumura intends to make much of her current scale of business and does not want to expand it greatly. In addition to her age of 61, her reluctance to increase numbers of employees is another reason. She humbly says that she would be satisfied if only she could keep working healthily all her life with a sense of mission. If she sees any fund surplus, she intends to consider allocating it to welfare business by means such as delivering box lunches to homes for senior citizens as birthday presents once a month, rather than expanding her business.
As for her sales channels, she wishes to put her business on the sales routes of chains of characteristic stores some day. She has now decided to use the sales network of Toyama Daiichi Chemicals Industry (a route-sales drug peddler) and is scheduled to start doing so in February. The mechanism is such that application forms for box lunch are distributed and collected by home-visit salespersons from the pharmaceutical company. Her organization is working to open up other channels, too, by means such as displaying its exhibits at the Festival for Power Supply Towns at Makuhari Messe (an event aimed to exhibit and sell special products of power supply towns and to introduce local entertainments and tourist spots held by the Center for Development of Power Supply Regions).
As for customers, she wishes to increase sales for senior citizens and considering ways to appeal to homes for senior citizens accommodating more than 300 persons throughout Japan. As for products, she is planning to increase the percentage of sushi. Sushi is highly profitable, in that its unit price is 1,100 yen, more than double the prices of box lunches. Its use-by date is as long as three days and easy to distribute through new sales channels. She therefore thinks that there is much room for sushi to be sold in more quantities in the future. |
7. Summary of the considerations for making business startup a success
The features and strengths of Shokuyo No Mori To Yama are the founder's strong will to solve the questions and problems regarding "food" which she has always been aware of since the time when she was an employee in the prefectural government, along with the knowledge she has long cultivated, as well as the community-based way of business where the organization enjoys the cooperation by farmers, sympathizers, and supporters. For example, part-timers go to work every morning with vegetables and other food items harvested in their own fields, and cook and ship them. This system allows the employees to find their work rewarding while ensuring profitability. A safe, low-cost purchase system is established at this company in a natural manner. Products differentiated according to the management principle of providing safe food make it possible to ensure a secure, although not high, demand. The fact that the company was able to make full use of services provided by the Expert Bank, Entrepreneurship Workshop, commercial and industrial association, and the Small and Mid-sized Companies Support Center would be another major factor that has made Shokuyo No Mori Toyama successful. |
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