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Hideki Amatake: Overcoming the Great East Japan Earthquake

Publish: May 01, 2018

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  • Hideki Amatake

    Other : President and CEO, Amatake Co., Ltd.Faculty of Law Graduated

    1989 Faculty of Law

    Hideki Amatake

    Other : President and CEO, Amatake Co., Ltd.Faculty of Law Graduated

    1989 Faculty of Law

We, Amatake, are a comprehensive chicken manufacturer involved in the breeding, processing, treatment, and sales of chickens in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures.

About 30 years ago, we developed and launched "Nanbu-dori," the industry's first branded chicken (chickens sold under a brand name created by the producer through innovative breeding methods and feed).

With "food safety and security" as our core philosophy, we took on the challenge of producing chickens without using any antibiotics or synthetic antibacterials throughout the entire breeding period. Amatake was the first in Japan to succeed in this, gradually overcoming repeated failures through meticulous production management.

Furthermore, while "Salad Chicken" is a household name today, it was Amatake that first commercialized this product 18 years ago and introduced it to the world under that name. In this way, we grew steadily as an industry pioneer by adopting various differentiation strategies. However, we suffered catastrophic damage during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and the company's survival fell into crisis overnight.

In addition to the physical damage caused by the earthquake, we faced years of harmful rumors and spent days of indescribable hardship. However, by discarding conventional business common sense and working together as a team with new ideas, we were able to achieve a miraculous and complete recovery.

Although our production scale is less than 60% of what it used to be, I believe we have been reborn as a very strong corporate entity by narrowing down our product line and increasing efficiency while thoroughly eliminating waste.

In a society with a declining population, expanding production scale only increases the burden on employees. Therefore, I do not aim for scale expansion in the future. Instead, I believe my great mission is to pursue thorough efficiency and increase profitability within our current limited number of birds, and above all, to give back as much as possible to the employees who have supported the company this far.

Moving forward, I aim to build a company where employees can truly feel glad they worked here¡ªnot only in terms of income but also by increasing holidays, enhancing welfare benefits, and improving job satisfaction¡ªwhile working hard for the reconstruction of the disaster-affected areas.

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.