Initiatives under Good Governance

Food safety and quality assurance initiatives

To realize our business Purpose, “Bringing Joy to Meals and Fun to the Table,” and deliver safe, high-quality products to customers, we have a rigorous quality and process control system based on four priorities: food safety, food defense, food quality, and food communication. This kind of effort is not the exclusive purview of the production and quality-assurance divisions. We foster a corporate culture that encourages all employees to be aware of the importance of food safety and promote it through the groupwide quality-assurance system across our entire value chain, from product development to delivery to the customer.

Food safety standards

Our processed food business has 22 factories, which produce a variety of food products, from frozen and ambient foods and seasonings. 16 of these factories are located in Japan, and 6 are located in China, Indonesia, Thailand, and the U.S. Our products are sold primarily in the Japanese market.

* Figures are as of December 31, 2025.

We make sure that all of our factories* are certified to the global food safety standard FSSC 22000. FSSC 22000 is recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), the food industry’s global body for promoting food safety management.

All the factories contracted to manufacture our products are requested to meet food safety standards such as ISO 22000 or FSSC 22000, as an assurance that an adequate food safety management system is in place.

We also work with multiple independent advisors, who have helped to develop our approach to food safety since 2008. We have two advisers to give us useful recommendations and suggestions about food safety and encourage a greater employee awareness about quality control through lectures on food safety and consumer consciousness about it.

In order to ensure food safety, we have introduced a system that records information about our products at every stage of the process, from the raw materials and production to processing, distribution, and sales. This means we can retrace our product to any point, if necessary.

* One of our overseas factories, which started its operations in 2026, is on track to receive this certification.

Food communication

Food defense practices

Food defense is about protecting our manufacturing processes and products from intentional contamination. We apply robust food defense guidelines across the supply chain, both in our own factories and our contracted factories. We also carry out annual audits to check how well these guidelines are being implemented.

We are continuously strengthening our food defense mechanisms. We are working on further utilization of factory cameras and enhancement of our drug management system both in our own factories and our contracted factories.

Enhancing food quality

Food quality control is an essential element of our daily operations. Along with quality improvement efforts on factory floors, we ensure that all of our employees receive training through customized e-learning materials.We also listen to our consumers’ suggestions for improving product quality, and swiftly share these with our factories and operations.Our expert committee enables us to effectively respond to our consumers’ recommendations. The Committee includes not only members of the Quality Control division, but also representatives from many other divisions, such as Product Development, Manufacturing, Distribution, and Marketing and Sales.Our consumer complaints management system is based on ISO 10002, the international standard for customer satisfaction and complaints handling. Additionally, in 2024, we introduced a cloud-based call receiving system instead of the previous telephone lines and have established a system that allows for the quick resumption of call reception even in the event of large-scale disasters or other emergencies.

Further food communication

Transparency is at the heart of our business, and we are always willing to provide details about our food products. We respond to consumers’ requests for information and disclose the precise factory where food products were made, or the country of origin of the main ingredients.

We have toll-free numbers on our product labels which consumers can call for extra information. In addition, in order to respond to customer feedback more quickly, TableMark Co., Ltd. is improving the inquiry form on its website year by year.

To develop products from the customer viewpoint, in 2020 we built a system to facilitate the communication of customer opinions to all employees via our internal network. We will continue workplace reforms to help each employee easily hear customer feedback.

Food communication