HOME > Business Divisions / Consumer Lifestyle Business Division
In April 2006, the Consumer Lifestyle Business Division replaced its three business group structure\ comprising the Foods Group, the General Commodities & Consumer Business Group, and the Textiles Group with a dual group structure. This new structure comprises the Foods Unit and the Textiles & General Merchandise Unit, formed by combining the former General Commodities & Consumer Business Group and the Textiles Group, which share certain areas of downstream strategy. The Foods Unit operates across the entire food business sector, handling agricultural, marine, and livestock products and associated processed food products. Based on its business vision of establishing an innovative food value chain that vertically integrates upstream and downstream activities to provide safe and reliable food, the Foods Unit has many cooperative plants and joint ventures in Japan and overseas and pursues a strategy that integrates raw material procurement, processing, distribution, and sales.
The Textiles & General Merchandise Unit handles a huge variety of businesses: it utilizes Sojitz' powerful supply chain in clothing and bed linen materials and wholesaling, while Sojitz' global capacities come into play for textile operations, highly functional textile materials, and industrial textile materials. In its lifestyle business the unit supplies infant products to specialty chain stores and volume retailers throughout Japan, while the general commodities and consumer business handles woodchips, consumer products, and cigarettes. Each of these businesses is striving to cater to customers more fully and provide more detailed and sophisticated services and functions.
Against a backdrop of recent advances in globalization, diversification of consumption patterns, and changing industry trends, ongoing changes are occurring in sources of business earnings and in markets themselves. In a bid to take advantage of these trends, the division is strengthening its functions in each of its businesses and pursuing earnings growth by establishing a value chain unique to Sojitz. The division is focusing its resources on a number of businesses in particular: in its powerful textile business it is expanding sales in the U.S. market based on its production capabilities; in the woodchip business it is strengthening its production base; and in its foods business, the division is entering new overseas markets particularly in China and the rest of Asia and expanding its functions with regard to food resource procurement, manufacturing and logistics.
The strategic emphasis of the Foods Unit is on the potential rapid-growth markets of China and other Asian countries. We intend to roll out new food-related businesses overseas by collaborating with local companies, branches and offices in these countries primarily through the Provisions Dept. set up in October 2006. In June 2007, Sojitz acquired 20% of a major flour milling company in Vietnam, and expects to continue aggressively building its business targeting overseas markets. The Foods Unit is also targeting expansion of its business domain in the Japanese market by reinforcing its manufacturing and logistics functions, particularly those of its core company Sojitz Foods. Overseas, the Foods Unit is conducting investments and loans focused on the priority regions mentioned previously China and elsewhere in Asia\with a view to building a solid value chain within the Sojitz Group.
For the Textiles & General Merchandise Unit, the division has been establishing a network of four bases covering the markets of the United States, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan. Under this structure, it is pursuing the expansion of its OEM business, entry into the retail market, strengthening its upstream business earnings base, establishing new technology-oriented businesses as sources of earnings, and expanding its woodchip processing business for the Japanese market.
Sojitz is also endeavoring to further strengthen its functional business capacities by building a proprietary Group supply chain. Measures to achieve this goal include reinforcing its wholesale and retail functions through a tie-up with a U.S. apparel company and expanding downstream business around the existing apparel wholesale companies of the Sojitz Group.
