Yoshimura Food Holdings <2884> primarily focuses on planning and selling commercial food ingredients, establishes a business model of direct delivery to sales destinations without in-house logistics functions, and has subsidiary companies such as Yoshimura Food, which produces and sells chilled shumai and gyoza, Rakuyou Shokuhin, which mainly deals with scallops from the renowned fishery in Funka Bay, Hokkaido, as well as salmon, ikura, squid, and other processing and selling at Wyeth Foods. The major consolidated subsidiaries as of the end of February 2024 are 28 companies.

The company merges various issues faced by small and medium-sized food companies nationwide, despite having excellent products and technological capabilities, through M&A. It formulates and executes the group's overall management strategy, provides support and supervision to group companies in functions such as sales and marketing, production management, procurement and logistics, product development, quality management, and business management, and supports the expansion of business volume of each company by solving challenges through a "small and medium-sized enterprise support platform" that shares the strengths of each group company, such as excellent products, technologies, sales channels, and manufacturing know-how, and complements weaknesses such as lack of talent, funds, and sales channels.

The major business segments consist of two segments: the manufacturing business segment and the sales business segment.

The "manufacturing business segment" mainly sells to supermarkets, convenience stores, drugstores, and restaurants nationwide in Japan mainly through wholesale distributors, while for seafood centered around scallops, it mainly sells to export companies. Overseas companies mainly sell to hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, etc. in Singapore and Malaysia. As of the end of February 2024, there are 25 group companies.

The "sales business segment" mainly sells to industrial catering companies, cooperatives, etc. domestically, and to supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, etc. overseas. As of the end of February 2024, there are 4 group companies.

The cumulative revenue for the second quarter of the fiscal year ending February 2025 increased by 24.5% compared to the previous year, reaching 28,738 million yen, and the operating profit doubled to 2,003 million yen, showing a significant increase. Both the manufacturing and sales business segments continue to increase revenue, and it seems that the inclusion of Wyeth Foods Group's financial results contributed in addition to the organic growth of existing companies. Despite the impact on Marukichi due to import restrictions in China, the recovery of selling prices gradually led to increased profits. The overseas business also increased due to the recovery of tourism demand in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as the expanded sales of scallops by Marukichi and Wyeth Foods. The expected revenue for the full year is estimated to increase by 16.9% year-on-year to 58,215 million yen, and the operating profit is expected to increase by 14.7% to 2,744 million yen.

The company's business of taking over and revitalizing small and medium-sized food companies without successors is ESG management itself, achieving sustainable growth by strengthening ESG management. It is actively considering strategic M&A opportunities such as industry roll-ups that can expect significant benefits from consolidation and grouping of companies with strong product offerings and high profit margins. It received introductions for about 400 cases in the period ending February 2024, and already about 250 cases by the first half of the period ending February 2025. Recently, there has been an increase in cases where acquisitions are made through group companies or directly by the company itself, and there is an intention to increase the acquisition of cases through the company itself in the future.

The company's "small and medium-sized enterprise support platform" aims to achieve mutual complementarity and growth by overseeing group companies by function. It builds cross-functional organizations beyond company boundaries, shares the strengths of each company across the entire group, and complements weaknesses among them. Due to this, while performance and product strengths are important for acquisitions, the most crucial aspect is solid communication and alignment of values. The company is also actively considering acquisitions of overseas companies to leverage overseas sales channels and revitalize the domestic food market. Depending on the progress of future M&As, the Post-Merger Integration (PMI) is proceeding smoothly after acquisitions, maintaining strong growth of 15% in topline. Overall, with the potential increase of small and medium-sized food companies lacking successors, companies like this that are focusing on ESG management and driving growth across the entire group continue to be of interest.