Cookbiz <6558> operates the job information website "cookbiz" specializing in the food and beverage industry, and is engaged in the revitalization and growth support of the frozen processing industry such as scallops, sauries, and mackerels.

The sales of the HR business account for about 60% of the total sales, while the revitalization and growth support business account for about 30%. In the HR business, the company specializes in the area of ​​career change for regular employees in the food and beverage industry, and provides consistent services such as personnel introduction, job advertisements, and scout services as specialized services. In addition, we also provide a high-priced comprehensive support service "Recruitment Comprehensive Support Service" that matches the company's business strategy and annual recruitment plan. The number of trading partner companies is about 9,800, and the number of registered members is 0.25 million people (more than 90% of whom have experience in the food and beverage industry). The industry and business types of trading partner companies are diverse, and matching is achieved from a database with the largest number of food and beverage industry experienced personnel in Japan for job requests of various occupations. In addition, we also provide services such as introducing and registering specific skilled foreign personnel and shift management, attendance management, and salary management SaaS products for food and beverage business operators.

In the first half of the fiscal year ending in November 2024, sales were 1,708 million yen (31.7% increase from the same period of the previous year) and operating profit was 117 million yen (26.9% decrease from the same period of the previous year). The growth of the HR business was slowed down by the increase in training burden during the busy season and the impact of website renewal, but the revitalization and growth support business recorded a significant increase in sales (50.3% increase) due to the steady performance of fresh fish and baby scallops. Based on the strong performance of the revitalization and growth support business, the full-year performance forecast has been upwardly revised, with sales expected to be 35 million yen (31.3% increase from the previous year's plan of 3,350 million yen) and operating profit expected to be 351 million yen (21.1% increase, unchanged).

The company is renewing its job site and scout service to an automatic distribution model based on its service capabilities, in addition to its conventional strength of sales force, in order to achieve sustainable growth in its HR business. This is expected to lead to the alleviation of the burden on recruiters in the conventional scout service. The market environment has high job demand levels in the food and beverage industry, although the effective job-to-applicant ratio remains stable across all industries. In the job market for regular employees in the food and beverage industry, where more than 0.2 million people change jobs annually out of a total workforce of 1 million people, paid services (media, personnel introduction, and other paid services) account for more than half of the recruitment pathways, and among them, personnel introduction services are notably growing. There are few companies that specialize in providing support for regular employees in the food and beverage industry. The company provides all services such as personnel introduction, job advertisements, and scout services, and is expected to continue to benefit from the market environment. In addition to the significant growth of the revitalization and growth support business, there is a possibility of double-digit growth in medium- to long-term performance along with the solid growth of the HR business. While the recent stock price return has been sluggish, it is worth paying attention to the company's future prospects.