Calbee Group Integrated Report
2025
Message
Our Value Creation Story
Our Value Creation Strategy
Governance Data 1
Calbee's Values
Corporate Philosophy
We are committed to harnessing nature's gifts, to bringing taste and fun, and to contributing to healthy life styles.Founding Spirit Group Vision
To be a company that gathers knowledge in order to create products that are healthy, safe, and affordable, while utilizing unused food resources.
Calbee was founded during the food shortages following the Second World War, with a desire to improve nutrition by turning unused resources into nourishing snacks. Even today, this spirit continues to guide the products we make, inspired by the passion of Calbee's founder, Takashi Matsuo.
Takashi Matsuo,
the founder of Calbee (right)
We must earn respect, admiration and love firstly of our customers, suppliers and distributors, secondly of our employees and their families, thirdly of the communities, and finally of our stockholders.
Calbee Group Integrated Report
2025
Message
Our Value Creation Story
Our Value Creation Strategy
Governance Data 3
The Value We Create & Beyond -Bringing Joy and Happiness to Our ConsumersConsumers' values regarding food are continually evolving. That's why we never settle for the status quo and are constantly striving to improve what we do, bringing joy and happiness to our consumers. Through innovations that exceed expectations, we are advancing our vision for 2030, Next Calbee & Beyond. By creating products that both taste great and are fun, while supporting healthier lifestyles, we aim to build a brand that is loved worldwide.
Calbee Group Integrated Report
2025
Message
Our Value Creation Story
Our Value Creation Strategy
Governance Data 4
The Value We Create
Market share in Japan*1
No. 1
Snacks 51.9%
Cereals 37.8%
Calbee "Lbee" app*2 downloads
1.06
million
(as of June 30, 2025)
Brands with sales of
¥10 billion or more
7
Countries and regions of operation
12
Value created for consumers
We are committed to putting our corporate philosophy
into practice by building our value chain together with our stakeholders, and serving as a bridge between growers and consumers.
Through co-creation, we will provide products that taste great and are fun, while fostering a positive cycle that benefits nature and supports healthier living.
Value created for growers and the environment
Contracted potato farms
Procurement of
19
approx. % of Japan's potato production
Potatoes procured in Japan
371,000 tonnes
Products with RSPO*3 labeling 31 products
Approx. 1,600
*1 INTAGE Inc. SRI+ based on cumulative sales value for all retail formats nationwide; FY2025/3: April 2024 to March 2025; Snack market share: Total for Calbee, Inc. and Japan Frito-Lay Ltd.
*2 A program in which participants fold up product packages and scan the package information using a special app to collect "Lbee" points, which can be used to apply for experience events and promotions
*3 RSPO: Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil certification
Note: Figures without a stated period are current as of FY2025/3.
Calbee Group Integrated Report
2025
Message
Our Value Creation Story
Our Value Creation Strategy
Governance Data
CEO Message
Innovating to Create Demand
Makoto Ehara
President & CEO
1
To deliver greater joy to our consumers, we are pursuing innovation and creating new value.
Since our founding, Calbee has pursued great taste and fun, values that form the foundation of our innovation. Our commitment to contributing to people's health also stems from our origins in postwar Japan, when we set out to address malnutrition at a time when food was scarce. We believe this commitment will only grow in importance in the years ahead, and we will continue to position it as a core theme of our innovation.
As a market leader, Calbee has long focused on innovation that creates new demand, uncovering latent consumer needs through products that surprise and delight. But changes in our operating environment are accelerating, from climate change and demographic shifts to increasingly diverse dietary preferences. As a result, we recognize that consumer needs are evolving in ever-shorter cycles and in more varied ways than before. To respond, we are building a culture that empowers people to think freely, enjoy their work, and create new value-thereby accelerating our ability to innovate.
This mindset underpins Next Calbee & Beyond, our vision for 2030. Our vision is about responding to changing times while strengthening our ability to create new demand that no one has imagined before. The phrase "& Beyond" reflects our determination to not just pass on the baton to future generations but instead shape the future ourselves, leveraging speed and new ideas. Calbee is uniquely positioned to achieve this vision through our strengths as a manufacturer (monozukuri), which enable us to maximize the inherent taste of natural ingredients, and through our efforts to build a broad fan base by understanding their needs.
1 Final Calbee Fan Meeting of 2024
Calbee Group Integrated Report
2025
Message
Our Value Creation Story
Our Value Creation Strategy
Governance Data
CEO Message
And our consumers are ultimately the foundation of our growth. Even our most established and best-loved products are not guaranteed to remain popular, so we must continue to work diligently to create added value. In order to surpass consumer expectations, we must be proactive, embrace challenges, and welcome change. I believe this
approach will enable us to drive sustainable growth and 2
strengthen corporate value.
Completing Change 2025
At present, we are advancing our three-year growth strategy, Change 2025. To maintain our strong domestic market share, it is essential that we anticipate change and respond in an agile manner. This is because consumer needs are evolving every day, and staying competitive requires us to consistently maintain a consumer-centric perspective. While many of our long-selling brands in Japan continue to be loved by consumers, the domestic market is expected to slow over the long term due to Japan's aging and declining population. That is why we have to build on the strengths we have developed so far to establish new growth pillars. At the same time, our brands are still gaining recognition overseas, representing significant growth potential.
In this environment, and under Change 2025, we are transforming Calbee through three core pillars: enhancing the profitability of our domestic core business, transforming our business portfolio by expanding into new fields and overseas markets, and reinforcing our business foundation by developing talent and systems to support these initiatives. We are already beginning to see results.
In particular, through our digital transformation (DX) strategy, we improved profit in our domestic core business by approximately ¥1 billion in FY2024/3. Factory DX activities
Setouchi Hiroshima Factory started operations in January 2025
are steadily boosting productivity while supply chain optimization, focusing on profitability per SKU*, is progressing well. Going forward, we will continue to enhance profitability by cultivating DX talent and reinforcing our management information infrastructure. We have also set medium- to longterm milestones and are monitoring progress continuously to ensure the effectiveness of our strategy.
However, to fully leverage digital transformation in order to strengthen our core domestic business, and develop overseas and new businesses as future growth pillars, we must also encourage new ways of thinking.
Since becoming CEO in 2023, I have prioritized dialogue with employees, and have continued to host regular Kurumaza (roundtable) Meetings. Starting in April 2024, we opened these up to all employees, and over the course
of a year, I spoke with approximately 3,500 employees across 56 sessions. These meetings encourage employees to take greater ownership of our management policy by reflecting on the value we create, our purpose as a company, and addressing the fundamental question, "Why do we need to transform now?" I believe that if all of us work together with the aspiration to grow Calbee well beyond its first 100 years, we can truly transform Calbee.
In the past, ambitious numerical targets without a clear framework to implement our strategy or a shared understanding among employees led to a decline in motivation. To address this, I focused on building successful experiences. I continually encourage employees to move forward steadily, earnestly, and thoroughly, advancing step by step with determination. As a result, we achieved record-high
Calbee Group Integrated Report
2025
Message
Our Value Creation Story
Our Value Creation Strategy
Governance Data
7CEO Message
performance in FY2025/3. I believe the experiences we accumulated have strengthened confidence across the Company and created a virtuous cycle that inspires us all to take on new challenges.
* SKU: Stock Keeping Unit, the minimum management unit for receiving or writing orders and managing inventories
The Challenge of Sustainable Growth
For Calbee to continue growing sustainably beyond our 100th anniversary, reinforcing our business foundation is essential. In particular, organizational and human capital strategies, together with sustainability management, will be critical.
The biggest challenge I see for our organization and people is fostering a spirit of taking on challenges without fear of failure. Without this, we cannot expect to innovate or grow. By encouraging everyone to step outside of their comfort zones to embrace new challenges, I believe we can cultivate a mindset that will shape the future.
Calbee has long led the domestic snack and cereal markets as the industry's top manufacturer. However, to
expand globally and into new fields, we have to move beyond traditional approaches and adopt a challenger mindset. I believe facing difficulties truly strengthens an organization and the unique qualities that set it apart. To support this, we will introduce a new personnel system in April 2026 under our human resources vision, Active Roles for All Employees. This system is designed to encourage both personal growth and diverse contributions. I see it as my responsibility to create a culture where everyone can take on challenges boldly and positively.
In addition, Calbee's businesses are closely tied to natural capital such as agricultural and marine products, and addressing climate change and human rights is particularly important to our sustainability efforts. Potatoes, the main ingredient in some of the snacks we produce, are susceptible to climatic conditions, which affects both yield and quality. This impact will be increasingly felt with the aging and shrinking number of agricultural workers. To mitigate future risk, we are focusing on supporting growers by developing potato varieties that resist pests and environmental change, diversifying production areas, and developing contractor services to assist farmers with production and harvesting.
Our Setouchi Hiroshima Factory, which began operations in January 2025, also integrates a sustainable production system designed to reduce our environmental footprint, using renewable energy and a system that converts waste potato parts into energy and other resources. Going forward, we will maintain our commitment to building a sustainable society at the core of our management approach and, in collaboration with stakeholders, we will further strengthen our initiatives to address the material issues in our business activities.
Guided by our corporate philosophy, we are working to create new value, pursue innovation, and deliver joy and happiness to more consumers by building our presence in global markets. To achieve this, we are encouraging every employee to embrace transformation and to act with speed in advancing our business structure reforms, paving the way for the next growth stage. To all our stakeholders, including shareholders and investors, we ask for your continued understanding and support, and hope you share our high expectations for Calbee.
3
4
Third year of Kurumaza
Meetings in Japan
Kurumaza Meeting at Calbee America, Inc.
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Calbee Inc. published this content on October 20, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on October 20, 2025 at 02:10 UTC.
