The Mitsubishi
Monitor talks with Dr. Koichiro Aramaki, president of Japan's
largest producer of beer, Kirin Brewery.
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Dr. Aramaki shows off some
of his company's most popular beverages, including
imported whiskey. |
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You
are regaining market share in Japan after several frustrating
years of decline. How are you reinforcing your company's
appeal to Japanese beer drinkers?
With quality. "Kirin" is synonymous with beer
in Japan, where we were the first commercial brewery. Customers
rightly expect a richly flavorful experience when they sip
one of our brews. And we dedicate ourselves to fulfilling
that expectation.
On the other hand, demand in Japan has
changed dramatically over the past several years. Japanese
used to be satisfied with just a very few kinds of beer.
But they now insist on a dizzying variety of brews. That
includes a continuing stream of new products from the nation's
four big brewers and a lot of distinctive offerings from
a growing number of microbreweries.
We had commanded a huge share of the
market for decades with a single brand, Kirin Lager. So
the diversification in demand was a challenge for us in
the marketplace. But we have recovered our footing and are
regaining momentum with new and traditional brands.
Japanese demand
has shifted dramatically toward light, watery beers. That
is a disturbing trend for those of us who enjoy hearty brews,
like Kirin Lager.
Young people, especially, have opted increasingly for lighter
beers. And we have caught up with that trend through some
very successful new brands. But we also are attentive to
the huge core of beer drinkers who remain loyal to more
robust brews.
We briefly alienated some of our traditional
customers a few years ago. In our haste to cope with the
surging demand for light beers, we even tweaked our flagship
brand, Kirin Lager. We toned down its traditionally Germanic
bitterness slightly. Some of our most loyal customers expressed
dismay. And we have restored the full-bodied flavor in Kirin
Lager Classic. Happily, Classic has been extremely successful.
You sell
beverages besides beer.
Yes,
we at Kirin Brewery offer a full line of alcoholic beverages,
including whiskey and shochu, a Japanese drink distilled
from rice, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, or other raw materials.
Kirin Beverage, a member of the Kirin Group, is a leading
supplier of soft drinks.
For a long time, shochu was primarily
a drink for customers of middle age and older. But young
people have rediscovered its appeal in recent years, especially
in premixed cocktails. Those cocktails are a fast-growing
sector of the Japanese market. And our new line of shochu
products has been especially popular. |
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Apart
from beverages, you have built a profitable foothold in
Our expertise in fermentation was the basis
for productive research in bioengineering. We have supplemented
our own technology through partnerships. The most prominent
example is our relationship with the U.S. company Amgen.
We handle the Asian marketing for a pair of hugely successful
products from Amgen-- genetically engineered drugs for stimulating
the growth of blood cells. |
Aren't drugs becoming
an industry for massive, multinational companies with huge
R&D budgets?
Size is important for a company where management wants to
conduct research and development across a comprehensive
range of drug categories. But we focus our R&D carefully
on a narrow range of therapeutics, mainly in antibody-based
agents and cell therapy. And we leverage our R&D budget
through collaboration with partners. As for clinical trials
and marketing, we concentrate on Asia.
usiness outside
Japan is a big part of your operations in pharmaceuticals
and in beverages, too.
And
in flowers. We have built a large and highly international
business in growing and marketing flowers.
I have mentioned the importance of cross-border
partnerships to us in pharmaceuticals. In beverages, we
market beer worldwide. Our main strength, however, is in
Asia and Oceania.
We own a majority stake in Australia's
largest brewer, Lion Nathan, which also is the market leader
in New Zealand. We and a Taiwanese partner own a brewery
in China. It produces some beer under the Kirin name, as
well as producing a local-label brew.
Nearly all the recent growth in global
beer consumption has occurred in Asia. And we continue to
expand our presence there.
We serve North American customers with
Kirin beer brewed on our behalf by Anheuser-Busch in California.
In Europe, a British partner has helped secure a solid niche
for Kirin beer in the United Kingdom and on the Continent.
Although your company
does not bear the Mitsubishi name, Kirin is a historic Mitsubishi
company.
Yanosuke Iwasaki, the second president
of the old Mitsubishi organization, invested in our corporate
predecessor a century ago. Kirin has been a member of the
Mitsubishi community of companies ever since. Today, we
import a lot of our raw materials through Mitsubishi Corporation,
for example, and obtain a lot of our production equipment
from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi
is our main bank. Most of all, we are grateful to all the
Kirin drinkers in Mitsubishi companies around the world.
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