News Release

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FUJI OIL HOLDINGS

New Year's Thoughts

2015.1.5

Happy New Year, everyone!

Last year, the Fuji Oil Group released “Renaissance Fuji 2016”, our new midterm management plan.
This is a plan for our activities, formulated from a long term perspective on the changes related to food and the world. We began by depicting the target vision "How we want to be "for our Group in 2030. We then clearly defined “How we should be"by 2020, that is, what we must accomplish by that year in order to attain this target vision, and finally set down what we should do over by 2016 to achieve these agenda.
The basic management policy we set down in 1960 clearly states that we should resolutely and persistently pursue innovation in any aspect of the management in response to the development of the society, for adaptation to the trends of the times. Ever since that year, we have posted the goals of always putting the customer first and contributing to society, and resolutely taken up the challenge of various issues. With the changes currently underway, our Group is faced with the need for further innovation right now. These days, social and business environments are changing at an amazing speed. Innovation cannot be bred by conventional approaches and accustomed practices. The slogan“Renaissance Fuji" expresses our determination to return to our founding spirit that is to take up the challenge of innovation.

The midterm management plan positions the three-year period ending with 2016 as one for establishment of a global manage ment structure. We are transferring authority to the areas of Southeast Asia, China, and Europe and the Americas, and making arrangements under the keywords of “cost," "speed,” and “localization.” Following the establishment of Fuji Oil Asia Pte. Ltd. to serve as our regional headquarters for Asia in 2012, we are founding Fuji Oil (Shanghai) Management Co., Ltd. for regional headquarters operations in China this year. We are gathering the capabilities of the companies in our Group across China, and promoting decision-making there in the interest of speedier management. Our aim is the practice of regional headquarters management grounded in both products and markets.
This year, we are opening the Asia Research and Development Center, our first R&D center outside Japan, in Singapore, which is a hub for collection of information from all parts of Asia. We are also relocating FUJI SUNNY PLAZA SINGAPORE, which is engaged in application development and proposal-oriented marketing, to the Center, for consolidation of product, application, and market development all in a single site. In addition, in Japan, we are setting about construction of the Fuji Technocenter (tentative), which we have positioned as a center of technological innovation for the future of the Fuji Oil Group in its creation of new business, technologies, and products. We are building a globalized research setup and bolstering our capabilities for product development.

Lately, a chronic shortage of dairy products and other animal protein resources caused by its structure has come to the fore as a problem. In response to these circumstances, we undertook a project that was the first attempt of its kind with soybeans, a major vegetable protein resource in Japan, last year.
Together with companies and organizations supporting widespread publicity for the delicious flavor of soybeans, we launched the Mame Plus Committee and opened the Mame Plus Cafe (in Aoyama, Tokyo) as a limited-term project. We had earlier created premium soymilk (i.e., soy milk cream: “Ko-cream" and low-fat soy milk: “Bimi-tounyu”) using our unique USS (Ultra Soy Separation) manufacturing method, the world's first of this kind. Foods and desserts made with this soy milk were served at the aforementioned cafe as well as at ordinary cafes and restaurants. Some people asked us "When Fuji Oil began to run a cafe”! But the project was an approach that added a “Monogatari (creating stories)" element, meaning "Kotozukuri (creating movements),” to the “Monozukuri (creating products)" based on the technology of our Group; we are not about to start operating cafes and restaurants. Because we manufacture food materials, and we are a B to B company. Unless we think about the end-consumers, nevertheless, we could not be regarded as genuinely assisting the businesses that are our customers. For this reason, we may think of ourselves as a B to B for C(= consumer) company, and want to furnish society with products in which the Cs who are the customers of the Bs that are our customers will perceive real value. This last project was one manifestation of this desire of ours.
Our USS manufacturing method is going to be featured this year at Expo Milano 2015 as a new type of Japanese food processing technology. All people around the world are seeking lifestyles with delicious and healthy eating. We support such lifestyles and intend to continue creating various “stories" to this end.
In 2015, we in the Fuji Oil Group will be taking up challenges on the path to achievement of the vision in “Renaissance Fuji 2016" by ascertaining the needs of our customers, exercising our capabilities for marketing to create customer needs, and bolstering our technical expertise for supporting these efforts and bringing them to fruition. We are counting on receiving your support and advice again this year.

January 1, 2015
Hiroshi Shimizu, President and CEO