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| Expanding Our Core Businesses Through Accelerated Innovation |
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 First of all, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your continued support and patronage.The global economy now faces a crisis due to deepening worldwide financial instability that originated with the U.S. subprime loan problem. Despite this, the Fuji Oil Group's financial results for FY 2008 closely approached our original targets. This was achieved through increased worldwide sales of oils and fats for chocolate and specialty products such as low trans fats, as well as strong performance by our overseas oils and fats businesses. Based on our corporate philosophy of "Contributing to healthier and happier living through the creation of contemporary eating habits as well as high-quality foods," the Fuji Oil Group continues to develop innovative new production technologies and to expand our range of safe and reliable, high-quality products. Steadfast commitment to our management philosophy, "To place top priority on safety, quality, and environmental integrity," has become even more important in the face of recent problems and difficulties in the global market relating to food safety and reliability. We are currently moving forward under our medium-term business plan, "Innovation and Action 2010." In fiscal 2008, the plan's first year, we were able to achieve our targets through the growth of value-added products (oils and fats for chocolate, confection and bakery ingredients, soy polysaccharides, etc.) representing our primary strengths. Although the strategies of "Innovation and Action 2010" will remain unchanged, from fiscal 2009 we are further accelerating our activities to adapt to the changing business environment. Two key strategies are being pursued: "Accelerating development of our overseas business" by expanding our core operations in Asian markets and effective alliances in China and Taiwan, and "Development of new markets" by promoting advantageous business collaborations in Japan and innovative marketing strategies for high-value-added products. We have also established a Planning Coordination Office and a Marketing Office at our Oils and Fats, Processed Foods Company's R&D facility, which will enable us to strengthen our proposal-oriented marketing organization, respond more promptly and develop new markets. The key factor behind the Fuji Oil Group's proposal-oriented marketing is our unique proprietary technologies. Our core technologies give birth to new ingredients that boost our marketing capabilities by allowing us to propose new applications, and these technologies in turn are refined and improved through the process of developing new ingredients. This continuous cycle of innovation - technology, ingredients, applications - forms the cornerstone of our technology-based management. True to the spirit of innovation our company was founded on, the Fuji Oil Group will continue pursuing the goal of being a food ingredient manufacturer highly respected by customers throughout the world, providing an expanding range of healthy, delicious products for niche markets, specialty markets, and the global market. In this way, by contributing to healthier and happier living for people everywhere, we are confident we can further increase our corporate value on the world market. In pursuit of these goals, we look forward to your continued support. June 2009 |
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