GK sat down with Fumitaka Takuma, President of Takuma Foods Co., Ltd., to discuss the rising demand for healthier snacks and the company’s use of creative collaborations to stay ahead.
So, how has the growing demand for natural foods impacted your company?
We have seen a growth in demand for fried vegetables, especially dried vegetables with various seasonings. We have also seen significant demand for vegetable products and in most cases, the clients ask for products with the awareness of calories and a healthy lifestyle. Most non-Japanese clients think that Japanese foods should be healthy automatically, but that is not the case always. So, we try to change the process of making food in various ways focusing on the seasoning or the taste or focusing on the calories or the health. So, we change our processes, but we always make sure of safety and the hygiene of the product processing line. Also, we have a steady demand for dried fruits and nuts. Nuts are the most stable demanded product of our company.
In terms of dried fruits and vegetables, it depends on the season when each product will see a demand, and it also depends on the import of materials. For example, now we can see a growing demand for eggplant-related products so we have asked the Chinese department to do the pre-processing of the eggplant and then export it to Japan. Then we do the processing, the packaging, and the final check to deliver to the retail shops. So, we have seen a lot of ever-changing demands for vegetable-related products.
Which is the most important for Takuma Foods?
It is hard to identify which sales channel is in the most demand, however, we have seen a decline in demand for inbound demand due to the pandemic. It declined to almost zero. However, we have seen an increase and a steady demand in certain areas, especially for collaboration items with other companies in various fields, such as rental video shops, rental DVD shops, or amusement facilities. We have seen a lot of the number of consumers in these areas increase after the pandemic. Also, sales channels for supermarkets have seen a steady demand too. Another advantage is that existing customers are ordering in larger volumes, as well as purchasing a wider variety of products. One factor that triggers those increases may be our new offerings of fried vegetable products.
So, how important are collaborations in Takuma Foods’ business operations?
This is what we call a character license in the business. Now, we have a deal with Sanrio, focusing on Hello Kitty, Peanuts, Snoopy, and Doraemon collaborations in Japan. We see that business as an advertisement to raise the popularity or the awareness of our products. We also use this as a promotional tool for our products. But, the sales channel is quite limited for these types of products because of licensing. So, they are more as souvenirs for inbound customers such as tourists coming from Asian countries such as China and Korea.
For example, Hello Kitty sells a lot at the golf range and airports among inbound clients and customers. Also, we sold a lot of Doraemon-related products to inbound customers. The cost is quite high so it is difficult to sell these products in ordinary sales channels such as supermarkets, but they can be sold in specialty shops such as Don Quijote and Village Vanguard. Also, they sell well during holidays such as Christmas, Golden Week, and Children’s Day.
