Hideki Amatake: Overcoming the Great East Japan Earthquake

2018/05/01

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 brand-name chicken (chickens sold under a brand created by the producer through unique breeding methods and feed).

With "food safety and security" as our core philosophy, we challenged ourselves to produce chickens without using any antibiotics or synthetic antibacterials throughout the entire rearing period. Amatake was the first in Japan to succeed in this, 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 employing various differentiation strategies. However, we suffered catastrophic damage during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, falling into a crisis that threatened the company's very existence overnight.

In addition to the physical damage caused by the earthquake, we faced years of reputational damage, leading to days of hardship beyond words. 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, we will 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—not only in terms of income but also by increasing holidays, enhancing welfare benefits, and improving job satisfaction—while continuing to work hard for the reconstruction of the disaster-affected areas.

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