|
|
The company I was with had restaurant and cafeteria divisions. To maintain confidentiality, I will refer to their restaurant division as ABC Restaurant.
Restaurants
ABC's rule is to deliver a meal to the customer in under fifteen minutes. To do this, approximately 75% of the items on ABC's menu are precooked, premixed or pre-prepared products. All the restaurant has to do is put the product in boiling water or use a microwave to heat it up. For example, the curry used in the beef curry is put in boiling water for ten minutes then placed on the plate with rice and it's ready to serve. Some of these pre-made products include fried rice, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, steaks and chicken (pre-seasoned and sliced), lasagna, and croquettes.
To be competitive, a foreign company has to provide these pre-cooked, pre-mixed, and prepared products at a low price to the parent company. For instance, steaks that are used in ABC restaurants are imported from Australia and are served with organic sauce. The individual rump slices weigh approx. 90g and 180g depending upon the menu item. Their wholesale prices are 166 J/yen each and 606 J/yen each respectively. These individual cuts are purchased from Ito Ham, a Japanese meat processor. The processed hamburg used in ABC restaurants is also purchased from Ito Ham which imports the meat from New Zealand. The different sizes of the hamburger are 160g and 130g depending upon the menu item. Their wholesale prices are 106.94 J/yen and 86.88 J/yen respectively. All imports go through one or two middlemen (importer and/or processor). The parent company does not always directly process meat.
If Canada/Alberta wants to export to Japan it has two choices:
The parent company is not importing meat from Canada because Canadian beef is not available through their middleman. The middleman (eg. Ito Ham) is currently importing beef from the US, New Zealand and Australia. Canadian beef is losing to the US, New Zealand and Australian beef companies because it does not appear to be promoted to the middleman or directly to the company.
Like many family restaurants, ABC is using organic vegetables to accompany the main dish on its menus. The domestically grown organic vegetables that ABC is using includes lettuce, sunny lettuce, tomato, cucumber and cabbage. ABC also offers organic carrot, grapefruit and orange juice made by a U.S. company (a California based company called Made in Nature) which is distributed in Japan through the Takanashi company.
Cafeterias
The cafeteria section is made up of 202 outlets which are located on the contracted companies grounds. The parent company does not have a set menu for all cafeterias. These menus are created on a six-week rotational basis, catering to the individual company's budget requirements. The cafeterias do provide some menu choices which are changed daily. The items that sell well are continued, the dishes that do poorly are changed on the next menu rotation.
There is a general price range which is allotted for wholesale price of the goods which falls in the range of 80-250 J/yen per item. The parent company orders supplies from many different companies to accomodate for the difference in taste from cafeteria to cafeteria.
Currently, the beef slices that are being used in the cafeterias is a belly cut. This is a different quality and price from the ones being used in ABC restaurants. If price is the determining factor, an Alberta company may be able to sell their product to the parent company as long as the price being offered is lower than their current purchasing price.
Conclusion
This company has the potential to be a customer for Alberta companies/suppliers. However, due to the demand for uniformity in products for customers, they must provide a stable supply. The exporter must also be able to produce products with a cooking time of less than fifteen minutes with a low variation in qualitative aspects. Alberta companies must sell according to domestic suppliers' price in order to be competitive in this market. (Note: yen has strengthened considerably.)
If Alberta wishes to be competitive in Japan's food service industry, Alberta products must be actively promoted to the import, processing and food service companies.
The user of this information agrees to the terms and conditions in the terms of use and
disclaimer.
Copyright © 1999-2000 Her Majesty the Queen in the Right of Alberta. All rights reserved.