Elimination and Effective Utilization of Food Loss
Policy for Elimination and Effective Utilization of Food Loss
As a food manufacturer that utilizes limited food resources, Kewpie Group has made it a crucial responsibility to reduce food loss and make effective use of resources.
In recent years, the importance of reducing food loss has increased even further due to the impact of climate change on the yield and quality of agricultural products used as raw materials. Furthermore, interest in reducing food loss from our customers and other stakeholders is growing, and we are committed to continuing to meet those expectations.
Kewpie Group has identified "effective use and recycling of resources" as one of its material issues initiative theme and is focusing on reducing elimination and effective utilization of food loss waste and making effective use of unused parts of vegetables and reducing product waste.
The food loss that occurs at each stage of the supply chain
Responding to Food Loss Reduction
Kewpie Group is committed to reducing food loss by implementing various measures at each stage of the supply chain and working together within the group.
Reducing food loss in manufacturing
Kewpie Group is working to minimize food loss through measures such as efficient production line layouts and innovative product design.
Deria Foods Co., Ltd., which manufactures a variety of salads and delicatessen foods, has introduced a system to weigh and verify whether the production weight was appropriate at each stage of the manufacturing process. By digitizing this data and repeatedly analyzing the current situation, identifying contributing factors, and implementing countermeasures, they are working to minimize food loss.
Reducing food loss in products
Kewpie Group is working to reduce food loss by extending shelf life through improvements in manufacturing methods and packaging, and by switching to a "year and month" display for expiration dates.
Furthermore, Salad Club, Inc. promotes consumption by offering increased portion sizes during peak seasons when vegetable harvests are at their peak, thereby supporting efforts to reduce food loss in production areas.
List of compatible products
| Start time |
Targets | Actions |
|---|---|---|
| July 2025 | KEWPIE MAYONNAISE 50g, 130g, 200g KEWPIE MAYONNAISE (jar) KEWPIE MAYONNAISE- Tom and Jerry (jar) |
The shelf life has been extended from 12 months to 13 months, and the expiration date is now displayed in year and month. |
| July 2025 | Free-range egg mayonnaise | The shelf life has been extended from 10 months to 13 months, and the expiration date is now displayed in year and month. |
| December 2024 | KEWPIE MAYONNAISE 450g, 350g | The shelf life has been extended from 12 months to 13 months, and the expiration date is now displayed in year and month. |
| October 2024 | Salad Club, Inc. Select SALAD Series (3 items) | The expiration date has been extended by one day (four days in addition to the processing date). |
| June 2024 | Salad Club, Inc. Cut Lettuce Leaf Mix Big Pack Increased Quantity Promotion Nationwide (excluding Hokkaido, Tohoku, and Okinawa prefectures) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| February 2024 | All Verde Toast Spread Series | Extended from 13 months to 19 months However, the basil period will be extended from 11 months to 13 months. |
| February 2024 | Salad Club, Inc. Shredded Cabbage Mixed Salad Increased Quantity Promotion (Kyushu Area) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| February 2024 | Salad Club, Inc. Shredded Cabbage Increase Promotion (Nationwide) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| February 2024 | Salad Club, Inc. Shredded Lettuce Increase Promotion (Okinawa) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| February 2024 | Salad Club Shredded Cabbage Mixed Salad with Broccoli Super Sprouts - Increased Quantity Promotion (Tokai and Hokuriku Areas) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| December 2023 | Kewpie 3-Minute Cooking: 3 types of mixed dressings | Extended from 7 months to 12 months |
| September 2023 | Kewpie Yasashii Kondate 5 items | Extended from 19 months to 25 months |
| September 2023 | Kewpie Aeru Pasta Sauce (8 varieties) | Extended from 11 months to 12-19 months |
| June 2023 | Salad Club, Inc. Cut Lettuce Increase Promotion (Nationwide) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| May 2023 | GREEN KEWPIE Dressings (2 items) | Extended from 8 months to 10 months |
| March 2023 | Salad Club, Inc. Baby Corn | Extended from 19 months to 24 months |
| March 2023 | Kewpie Delifit Mayonnaise 190kg | Extended from 60 to 75 days |
| January 2023 | Salad Club Shredded Cabbage Mixed Salad with Broccoli Super Sprouts - Increased Quantity Promotion (Tokai and Hokuriku Areas) | Support for reducing food waste at the production site during peak season |
| January 2023 | Kewpie Iron-Fortified Soft Rice Crackers | Extended from 6 months to 12 months |
| September 2022 | All products in Kewpie Aeru Pasta Sauce series | Change to "Year and Month Display" Extended shelf life |
| September 2022 | Kewpie Yasashii Kondate Series: 31 Dishes | Best before date extended to 25 months. |
| June 2022 | Salad Club, Inc. Cut Lettuce (Extra) | Support for maintaining production systems and reducing food waste at the source. |
| March 2022 | Salad Club, Inc. Pre-Cut Vegetables for Cooking: Cabbage for Stir-Frying | Achieving one of the longest shelf lives in the industry: 7 days (processing date + 7 days). |
| February 2022 | Kewpie 3-Minute Cooking Let's eat vegetables! Soup base series |
Change to "Year and Month Display" Best before date extended from 12 months to 13 months. |
| 2022 | Delicatessen foods such as potato salad | Extended shelf life through the Cold-Pressure Fresh Processing®* *Our unique technology, which processes food at low temperatures and high pressures, preserves the original texture and color of the ingredients, maintaining the flavor while extending shelf life. |
Reducing product waste
The main causes of product waste include the gap between production and sales figures based on demand forecasts, and returns due to unsold goods during the distribution stage. We are working to address these issues through collaboration among all departments within each company, as well as actively donating to food banks.
To improve the accuracy of supply and demand adjustments, coordination between production, sales, and logistics is necessary.
Since 2015, relevant departments have been meeting every other month to form a working group. This group focuses on "product inventory," discussing various challenges and solutions throughout the manufacturing and distribution process. This activity has led to a shift in company-wide awareness of food loss reduction, resulting in more planned production and optimized inventory levels, ultimately reducing waste.
Initiatives to reduce returns in collaboration with our business partners
We collaborated with some retailers and wholesalers in the Kanto region to reduce the amount of unsold goods that were wasted. By reviewing the sales trends of products at each store and optimizing product deliveries, we achieved zero returns, a feat that was previously considered difficult.
Currently, we are expanding this initiative horizontally and working to reduce product waste throughout the entire supply chain by promoting collaboration both inside and outside the company.
Recipes to reduce food waste
We want to support our customers in implementing measures to reduce food loss in their daily eating habits.
While the outer leaves and cores of vegetables are often discarded, we recommend using them as delicious ingredients with a little ingenuity. These parts, which are actively growing to protect the vegetable from damage and pests, may have different nutritional value and functional properties compared to other parts.
On our "Special Recipes" website, which showcases recipes for various dishes, we've been featuring recipes since 2019 that utilize cabbage cores, lettuce outer leaves, and broccoli stems, all devised by students from Tokyo Kasei University.
"Kewpie 3-Minute Cooking," a program sponsored solely by Kewpie, offers easy, convenient, and timely recipes to help with daily meal planning. With environmental awareness becoming increasingly commonplace, the program will also incorporate eco-friendly elements.
We will introduce eco-friendly recipes that can be easily incorporated into daily cooking, including tips for making the most of ingredients without waste and ideas for saving energy, providing an opportunity to get started on eco-friendly practices.
"Plus Eco" logo
Promoting Effective Utilization
Kewpie Group is working with stakeholders to promote various initiatives and make effective use of food resources.
Biogas power generation using food waste*
Kewpie Group, in its process of manufacturing various types of mayonnaise, generates food waste, such as mayonnaise, from the piping when switching between different product lines. They have successfully utilized this food waste generated during the manufacturing process for biogas power generation.
This initiative is being implemented at Kewpie 's Goka Plant, Nakagawara Plant, Izumisano Plant, Kobe Plant, and group companies Tosu Kewpie Co., Ltd. and Kpack Co., Ltd.
*Biogas power generation is a system that uses biogas produced by mixing livestock waste and food scraps from pig farms, undergoing methane fermentation, and then generating electricity.
Unused portions of vegetables
Kewpie Group is committed to making effective use of unused parts of vegetables, such as cores, stems, outer leaves, and peels, that are generated during the processing of salads and delicatessen foods.
Unused portions of leafy vegetables
In fiscal year 2017, Green Message Co., Ltd., a cut vegetable factory, succeeded in converting cabbage and lettuce leafy vegetables into animal feed, something that had previously been considered difficult to do on a business scale. Joint research by Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and Kewpie* has reported that dairy cows fed this feed produce increased milk.
Furthermore, Salad Club, Inc. utilizes unused parts of vegetables, such as outer leaves and cores, generated at its seven directly managed factories during the production of packaged salads, by providing them to contract farmers and other organizations as compost and animal feed.
*Presentation at the 124th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Animal Science (March 2018)
Effective use of unused parts of vegetables (e.g. cabbage)
Unused portions of potatoes
Potato Delica Co., Ltd. and Deria Foods Co., Ltd. Metropolitan Area Business Division use special technology to liquefy potato peels and trimming scraps generated during the potato salad manufacturing process, and use them as feed for pigs.
This technology addresses challenges in the pig farming industry, such as the production and stable distribution of safe, domestically produced feed, and also contributes to the creation of a circular economy that utilizes food waste.
Effective use of unused parts of potatoes
100% effective use of eggs
In addition to mayonnaise, Kewpie Group produces a variety of egg products, using approximately 10% of the eggs produced in Japan.
KEWPIE MAYONNAISE uses egg yolks, while egg whites are used as a food ingredient in processed seafood products such as kamaboko (fish cake) and confectionery such as cakes.
Furthermore, the approximately 28,000 tons of eggshells generated annually are effectively utilized as soil conditioners and additives in calcium-fortified foods. Eggshell membranes are also being used in advanced applications such as cosmetics. We are committed to 100% effective utilization of eggs.
100% effective use of eggs
Eggshells strengthen rice and also strengthen human bones.
In collaboration with Professor Yoshimasa Tsujii and Professor Taku Kato of the Faculty of Applied Biosciences at Tokyo University of Agriculture, we are researching the value of eggshells as fertilizer. To date, we have found that applying eggshells as fertilizer to rice paddies reduces the impact of adverse weather conditions such as heat waves on rice crops, improves yields, and enhances the quality of the rice. Since rice cultivation area is the largest area of cultivated land in Japan*, we expect that in the future, the effective use of eggshells will extend not only to Kewpie Group but to all of Japan.
Furthermore, in joint research with the Hanoi National Institute of Nutrition in Vietnam, we confirmed that eggshell calcium (a biomaterial mainly composed of edible finely ground eggshell powder and calcium carbonate) increases bone mass in humans. Eggshells are a material that can contribute to solving osteoporosis, a global problem due to aging populations. Currently in Vietnam, we are selling nutritionally fortified foods containing eggshell calcium, and are also promoting awareness and making proposals to schools and hospitals to improve the physical development of children and address the problem of osteoporosis in the elderly.
*Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2018: Total area planted with crops and land use rate (referenced).
Message
Our Challenge Going Forward is to Uncover the Full Potential of Egg Shells.
Calcium, the main component of eggshells, is thought to not only strengthen individual plant cells but also possess various physiological activities within them. One of these activities is the important role calcium plays in filling the rice grains into the husk during high-temperature stress. Eggshells, which contain large amounts of calcium, are expected to be an agricultural material that can prevent rice plants from suffering from summer fatigue and ensure a stable supply of delicious rice amidst global climate change.
Professor Taku Kato
Laboratory of Soil Fertility and Fertilizers,
Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Biosciences, Tokyo University of Agriculture
Functions of eggshell membrane
Kewpie has successfully separated eggshells and eggshell membranes using its unique manufacturing method. It was discovered that the water-soluble eggshell membrane has the effect of increasing type III collagen, which is essential for skin elasticity, and it has been used as a cosmetic ingredient since 1991.
Calcium fertilizer made from eggshells and vinegar
Kewpie Jyozo Co., Ltd. has developed and is selling "Yokatsusu," a calcium fertilizer made by dissolving eggshells in vinegar.
Regularly spraying it on the surface of leaves helps prevent calcium deficiency, promoting healthy growth of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and other plants.
Because it is made from food-derived ingredients, this product is gentle on people and the environment, and can be used with peace of mind.
History of Utilizing Egg Shells
| 1956 | We started drying eggshells in the sun and selling them to farmers as a soil conditioner. |
|---|---|
| 1981 | Eggshell crushing and drying equipment installed (former Sengawa factory). |
| 1981 | Eggshells are being marketed as food-grade calcium (achieved through the establishment of membrane removal technology). |
| 1991 | Eggshell membrane processed and launched as a cosmetic ingredient. |
| 2007 | Eggshells are being sold as a raw material for building materials and everyday goods (wallpaper, tires, etc.). |
| 2012 | Research begins on rice produced using eggshells as fertilizer. |
| 2017 | Eggshell calcium sauce launched in Vietnam as a nutritionally fortified food. |
| 2019 | Our efforts regarding eggshells have earned us the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award in the "3R Promotion Meritorious Service Awards." |
| 2020 | Our initiative regarding eggshells received the Director-General's Award from the Food Industry Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries at the "Food Industry Waste Reduction Awards." |
| 2021 | A video about "effective use of eggs" won the "Green Food System Promotion Award" at the Sustaina Awards 2021. |
| 2024 | In 2024, our egg-related initiatives received the "Food Industry Technology Achievement Award, Sustainability Category," sponsored by the Food Industry Newspaper. |
