Company Visit - Yakult

We visited Yakult Hong Kong on 6^th March, 2015 where we have seen the production lines of Yakult and got to know more about the development of the product.

More about Yakult 

Development of Yakult products

            Minoru Shirota, the developer of Yakult products who were a Japanese, believed in preventive healthcare and people can be healthy when their intestines are healthy. After his PhD in medicines, in 1930, he finally created the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) named after him, the Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota. 5 years later he succeeded in integrating the LAB into a healthy drinking product – the Yakult. He started selling the product. Yakult has been segmented as a healthy drink instead of cooling drinks in summer.  Later on, Yakult products are being sold to different places around the world.

 Logistics of Yakult Hong Kong

            Hong Kong is the fourth place in the world that sells Yakult products, following Japan, Taiwan and Brazil. The factory of Yakult Hong Kong is currently located in Tai Po Industrial Estate. Actually when the factory was opened in 1969, it was in Kwun Tong. It was moved to Tai Po in 1994.

            In the beginning, Yakult products were mainly sold and distributed by “Yakult Lady”, who carried the products to customers’ places. It was also served in glass bottles. With the change in time and cultural difference in Hong Kong and Japan, it was found that people in Hong Kong were not much interested about the distribution services. So in 1971, Yakult developed its own motorcade to distribute the Yakult products and used plastic bottles instead. Now we can buy them in supermarkets or stores.

            Yakult products that are produced in Hong Kong are for Hong Kong and Macau only. After the production in Yakult factory, products will be sent to Fo Tan or Kwun Tong, the two distribution centres of Yakult in Hong Kong. Products in Fo Tan will be distributed to the New Territories and Kowloon West while products in Kwun Tong will be distributed to Kowloon East and Hong Kong Island. Also, some products are directly sent from the factory to Macau.

After-sales Services

                Apart from the own motorcade, Yakult also provides after-sales service to their selling partners, for example supermarkets. Staff from Yakult would go with the motorcade to the supermarkets and help check the existing stocks. If there is any Yakult products that has expired, the Yakult staff will bring it back to the factory and exchange it for the supermarket. There is no upper limit of times of exchange as Yakult wants to guarantee the quality of their products.

 

Q&A Section

Question
1	How can Yakult deal with the increasing demand in China? Answer: Products produced in Hong Kong are restricted to be sold in Hong Kong and Macau only. There are 6 factories in China (Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guanzhou) already.
2	As your company advocates customer to drink one bottle of Yakult per day, do you think this hinders the sales of products? Are there any methods to improve the daily intake under health consideration? Answer: Yakult emphasizes its concert to bring healthy life to people, it is more important to fulfill its mission rather than earning more and more money. Also, Yakult wants to ensure that prices of Yakult products are reasonable and affordable by the public so everyone can get it easily.
3	How can Yakult maintain the profit by your current product line?  Will Yakult develop more different ways to yield more profits (e.g. more flavor)? Answer:
4	Will you consider providing other sizes (volume) of Yakult? Answer: No, 100mL of Yakult is already enough to satisfy a person’s daily need of lactic acid bacteria, where there are 10 billions of LAB inside. It has no side effect when people drink more than 1 bottle of Yakult per day but it will not further facilitate their intestines, it will just be wasted. However in different countries, there are different sizes of Yakult produced according to the situations of that countries. For example, Yakult in Hong Kong has 100mL, while it is only 85mL in Thailand and only 65mL in the origin of Yakult, Japan. Also, since Yakult targets different ages of people, they have to ensure the size of the drink is suitable for both children and elderly that they can finish the drink at once. There is no preservatives in Yakult so it cannot be stored again once the lid is opened because bacteria in the air may have contact with the drink.
5	What have you done in the supply chain management to handle this kind of perishable products? Answer: (Stated in Logistics of Yakult Hong Kong)
6	How do Yakult prevent the leakage of the secret of its recipe? No answer.
7	How can Yakult ensure the level of probiotics in the Yakult is in the ideal/appropriate amount when it reaches to the end customers? Answer: The quality assurance team will sample some of the Yakult and do analysis on them to calculate the number of probiotics. Also, Yakult recommends customers to store Yakult products in the refrigerator until they consume them since probiotics at very low temperature are not active. Probiotics reproduce more at room temperature. If the Yakult products are stored in refrigerator until consumption, the maximum level of reproduction and amount of probiotics should be archived when Yakult products reaches our intestines.
8	Your website showed that you were planning on introducing Yakult to Ahmedabad, India in Feb, 2015. What does it drive your introduction? Did you collect information from local about their likes and dislikes? Otherwise, how do you determine which place and when to introduce the product? And how do you minimize risks (for instance of unsatisfied customers)? No Answer.
9	Yakult provides home delivery service in Mainland China, Japan and Korean areas.  Why don’t you provide such service in HK? Answer: There were home delivery services provided by Yakult Lady in Hong Kong in 1969, however, it was found out that not much people are interested in the services. So Yakult cancelled the service years later. Hong Kong people use to buy their daily groceries in supermarkets or stores since it is very convenience to visit any of them which are near their places. It is quite different when comparing to countries like China and Japan because they are very large and people’s apartments are usually not near to stores. So Yakult brought their products to supermarkets and stores after cancelling the home delivery scheme.
10	Your company has different products in different countries. However, the products are sold locally.  Why don’t you sell all types of flavor in all countries? Answer: Originally there was only one flavor of Yakult around the world. But when Yakult wants to enter the Singapore market, there were many existing competitors already and they sold various flavors of probiotics healthy drinks. Yakult had to compete with them so there were different flavors of Yakult launched in Singapore. Furthermore, actually the recipe of Yakult produces around the world are the same. The only different that would result in different tastes of Yakult in different countries is that the water quality is different across countries.
11	Would you have other sustainable policies other than the bottle recycling (e.g. plastic cover)? Answer: Yakult has been recycling their aluminum covers and the plastic bottles. The plastic collected would be sent to Japan and uses as material of making artificial limbs for people in need.
12	Why there are so much sugar in a bottle of Yakult? Answer: The sugar in Yakult is used to sustain the life of probiotics in the drink since they are living organisms. For the low sugar version of Yakult (the green Yakult LT), dietary fibre inside the drink would be the substitute of sugar when all the sugar is consumed by the probiotics.