Drawing Out the Potential of Our Human Capital to Create Innovative Food Solutions

Representative Board Member,
President & CEO
Nissui Corporation

The source of the Nissui Group’s value is its human capital. No matter how much we mechanize or automate our production lines and business operations, ultimately it is the human resources involved who control the quality of our products. In our long-term vision, we place great emphasis on creating value in human capital. In our mission, we use the phrase “innovative food solutions” to refer to foods (or related goods/services) that take into consideration current problems and future needs Our innovative solutions, which are undoubtedly the fruit of our exceptional human capital, go beyond dining options and products to help resolve a variety of societal issues.

In March 2024, we partnered with the French company Amethis to invest in a private equity fund for Africa and began research into this vast market. This is the first such initiative for Nissui. I believe that this shows the benefits of encouraging freedom of thought, even if the idea may be outside the box for us. Our Group’s people are highly diligent and of exceptional quality. They carry out assignments and tasks properly and demonstrate outstanding skill. Meanwhile, to realize our long-term vision, what we really need is a sense of entrepreneurship and the attitude to accept challenges to change the status quo. I would like to see our employees think outside the box and always be willing to take on the challenge of new initiatives. At the moment, we still need more of such people. However, this does not mean that entrepreneurship has disappeared from the Company, nor that it needs to be created from scratch. Indeed, it is something that has been there in our genes since the Company was founded, and it is my wish to draw out the skills and potential of our personnel. Consequently, we are currently emphasizing employee engagement and, as a matter of priority, we are training personnel who are able to independently identify problems and take the initiative.

I also believe that to realize our long-term vision, it is vital that we create an organization full of diversity—an organization that respects not only diversity of gender, but also diversity of thought, knowledge, experience, and other attributes. Respecting each other’s diversity creates synergies that lead to improvements in business results and ultimately have a positive impact on the growth of individuals. This human capital is the key to achieving the Group’s various management strategies in the future. In addition, given the link between management strategies and human capital strategies, we have also been discussing succession planning from a medium- to long-term perspective. For management, the ability to plan, strategize, and execute is essential, as is the skill to manage risk and personnel. We need to train personnel with a broad vision who understand the details of our business and who can supervise the actions of the people involved in that business, while also being able to guide our future business path and identify current problems. Furthermore, I think it is important that we construct succession mechanisms that include the on-site transfer of skills between employees on our production lines and in other workplaces.

With each and every employee embodying our mission and taking on new challenges, we will supply innovative food solutions around the world—food solutions that enrich the heart and the body, and solve social issues. This is precisely the future that we are aiming for at the Nissui Group.