Fuji Oil : 2020 New Year’s Address by the President & CEO of Fuji Oil Holdings Inc.

Hiroshi Shimizu
President & CEO
Fuji Oil Holdings Inc.

Technology in the field of AI and IoT is developing apace with the disruption it is set to bring feeling ever closer, and when we consider things going forward, we have to take the approach of differentiating between forecasting and backcasting. Forecasting is when you consider the future from now and make incremental improvements on the basis of past data, experience and other such things. Backcasting, on the other hand, takes the future as the starting point and from there considers what needs to be done to become the type of company we want to be in future. In this generation, where change is so drastic that it is said there is no future in carrying on down the same path, this approach of backcasting is extremely important. Instead of just thinking about the future from the current circumstances, we have to backcast from the year 2050 and achieve a leap forward, and we have already started looking into how to do this.

The era in which only products bring value has ended, and we are now in an era where we can only achieve value if we link products to ideas. What moves people now is 'Kotozukuri' (creating movements). It is not only researchers who bring about innovation. In this generation, where values are diversifying, we have to look at society and consider what indeed value is. An age in which value cannot be created with products alone is what we could call an age where every person can bring about innovation.

Fuji Oil has originally been specialized in the production of unflavored, aroma-free oils and fats and soy protein, and we have also been specialized in fermentation technology for making ingredients for cream and cheese alternatives. But over the last ten years the technology for bringing flavor and function to oil itself has progressed, yielding things such as oils and fats with flavor-enhancing actions thanks to the DTR production method. I believe that applying these technologies going forward and combining them with protein will mean that soy milk cream butter that is more delicious than butter and soy meat that is more delicious than beef are not mere fantasies. Fuji Oil has the power to create a future with alternative products. And the products that have long been called alternative products will be guaranteed to one day no longer be 'alternative.' Alternative products refer to what are known as sustainable products, and Fuji Oil aims to be a platformer for sustainable foods. To 'Work for people' means nothing more than to solve the problems that people face. It is said that the global population will exceed 9.7 billion in the year 2050, and Fuji Oil knows how to solve the issues this will bring about.

This is the age in which economic value will be linked to social value. Since its founding in 1950, Fuji Oil has always worked to produce value for society with the spirit of Work for people. On this point, I am absolutely certain that we can be a company that leads the way in sustainability.

The year 2020 is already upon us. We will become a platformer for sustainable foods, and become an absolutely irreplaceable company. I wonder what kind of roadmap we can depict for ourselves; 2030 is the year by which the SDGs must be achieved and it is almost upon us, and the year 2050 is also by no means in the distant future.