East Japan Railway : Partnership Between JR East, Maruha Nichiro and UTokyo Planetary Health Diet Initiatives

May 31, 2024

East Japan Railway Company

Maruha Nichiro Corporation

The University of Tokyo

Partnership Between JR East, Maruha Nichiro and UTokyo

Planetary Health Diet Initiatives

TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY, opening in March 2025, will be the base for our industry-academia collaboration.

• East Japan Railway Company (JR East) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) teamed up in October 2023 to create the Planetary Health Design Laboratory (PHD Lab.) in an effort to improve the health of the planet. Maruha Nichiro Corporation (Maruha Nichiro) joins this partnership to advance "Planetary Health Diet", a concept of people and planet- friendly food, in order to enrich both people's lives and the planet for the next 100 years.
• The food of the future created by combining the production and distribution network of Maruha Nichiro, scheduled to move their headquarters to TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY, and the diverse expertise of UTokyo made available at the UTokyo at the University of Tokyo Gateway Campus to create food of the future will be refined using JR East's extensive customer network, including TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY, an experimental site for the future with its approximate 100,000 visitors, and disseminated throughout Japan and the world.

Concept image of a fish store in the future

JR East, with the wealth of its customer network, and UTokyo, with its diverse and cutting-edge knowledge, are working to create "Planetary Health"*1 under the "100-yearindustry-academia collaboration agreement".*2

In welcoming the Maruha Nichiro Group, which has the ability to provide a wide variety of "food" from the "sea", to the partnership, we will be able to create a "Planetary Health Diet" sustainable and enjoyable food of the future that is friendly to both the people and the earth and deliver it throughout Japan and the world from TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY.

1. Initiatives to realize our visions

• Remodeling fish as food

The initiative will work towards the revaluation and rebranding of fish as food by combining UTokyo's knowledge of artificial intelligence, fisheries science and customer psychology in an interdisciplinary manner, with the aim of expanding fish as food in a sustainable and eco- friendly manner. It will also aim to deliver fresh and easy-to-handle fish to customers, while producing future's fish as food.

	Food production,	Interdisciplinary creation
Extensive customer	processing and	of new knowledge
contact points	distribution capabilities	Fisheries
Providing	Product	Utilization・
customer reaction	development	Studies of Fishery
	capabilities	Distribution

• Change the way we live

Before: Inconvenience of purchasing, cooking and other processes makes it easy to turn to meat.

A f t e r : By simplifying finding the fish that meets your needs, fish becomes easy to select as your cooking ingredient.

• Specific initiatives

・Development of tasty, boneless and nutritious fish as food that stays fresh longer and is easy to prepare.

・Developing tools that shows freshness and the benefit of the fish being displayed.

・Transformation of fish as an ingredient that requires less cooking skills, reducing the fishiness in taste and having 100% edibility.

・Timely supply of easily cooked fish by introducing new aquaculture systems and cultured fish.

We will work to solve social issues involving food loss and food shortage problems as well as consumer health issues by expanding the consumption of fish while reducing environmental impacts such as marine pollution and CO2 emissions.

*1 PHD Lab's "Planetary Health" includes analysis of the impact of economic activities on people's health, living things and both urban and natural environments, with the intention of creating a way of living that maintains a balance between people, urban environments and the planet.

*2 On October 25, 2023, JR East and UTokyo announced the conclusion of a 100-yearindustry-academia collaboration agreement and the launch of their project PHD Lab. （https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/press/2023/pdf/20231025.pdf）

• Personal superfood (Complete health food)

Provide superfoods personalized to an individual's health and preferential needs based on their personal health record (PHR)*3 through interdisciplinary application of molecular nutrition, informatics and cultural studies at UTokyo to improve their quality of life (QOL).

	Food production, processing	Interdisciplinary creation
Plentiful touch points	and distribution capabilities	of new knowledge
with customers	Production and	Fisheries Utilization
	Food consumption
PHR	distribution
informatics・
	network
	AI nutrition

• Change the way we live

Before: Too busy to do anything but grab a snack

A f t e r : Enjoy personalized superfood for a healthy meal, even when you're in a rush.

• Specific initiatives

・Utilize PHRs to produce and provide nutritionally balanced food based on individual health and preferences.

Solve issues such as lifestyle-related illness, malnutrition due to poverty and food loss with food that brings joy and happiness as we work to create a society where life is fulfilling.

Concept image of personal

total health superfood

Concept image of Planetary Health Diet initiatives

*3 PHR is an electronic health record kept through the course of a person's lifetime, with all data centrally managed in the cloud so that the information may be used to inform of daily health activities that extend a person's lifespan.

2. Developments at TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY

• Creating a Collaborative Base in the City

In addition to the opening of the University of Tokyo GATEWAY Campus, Maruha Nichiro is scheduled to relocate their head office to THE LINKPILLAR 1 SOUTH in TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY in February 2026. This move will facilitate a deeper level of collaboration with JR East, Maruha Nichiro and UTokyo.

② Opening a venue to take on the challenge of Planetary Health Diet

Maruha Nichiro is planning to open a venue in the TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY where you will be able to try the food created based on the concept of Planetary Health Diet. It will be a location for both practical implementation and experimentation to fully realize the collaborative creative vision of the three institutions.

Maruha Nichiro will also work on culture reform for the next 100 years and beyond through the creation of new businesses and services through its connections with a diverse range of people inside and outside of the company.

References

Conclusion of a Basic Agreement Between Maruha Nichiro and UTokyo

On May 31, 2024, a Letter of Intent was signed between Maruha Nichiro and UTokyo. Maruha Nichiro's global value chain and product development prowess joins forces with UTokyo's objective of creating a new future through dialogue to build a future for both the ocean and life.

Together with JR East and its myriad customer network, the partnership will work to enrich the arth for the next 100 years, researching, then implementing initiatives on how to re-design the culture of fish as food from multiple perspectives, including nutrition, personal preferences and functionality.

Collaborative Creation Project, PHD Lab.

JR East and UTokyo concluded a 100-yearindustry-academia collaboration agreement to create "Planetary Health" with the aim of enriching lives for the next 100 years through the launch of the Planetary Health Design Laboratory (PHD Lab.) project. The University of Tokyo Gateway Campus will open in order to harness the city as an experimental site to work on solving global social issues with people from around the world.

TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY development overview

As part of the Shinagawa Development Project, JR East carries on a tradition of innovation that harkens back to the time when Shinagawa was the gateway to the country during the Edo period, and when it served as the launching point for the nation's first railways. We honor this with our "Global Gateway" design concept, through which we aim to create "an experimental site to create enriching lives for the next 100 years", working to build a city that continuously inspires the birth of new business and culture.

THE LINKPILLAR 1 and the area around Takanawa Gateway Station open at the end of FY2024 (late March 2025), with the other buildings (THE LINKPILLAR 2, Culture Creation Building (tentative name) and TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY RESIDENCE) and the surrounding area scheduled to open later in FY2025.

We will continue to promote the Shinagawa Development Project with the aim of increasing the value of the Shinagawa Station area (including the North Exit area) in conjunction with other urban development.

Official website:https://www.takanawagateway-city.com/en/

THE LINKPILLAR 1
SOUTH	NORTH	THE LINKPILLAR 2
		TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY
		RESIDENCE
		Culture Creation
		Building (tent.)
To Shinagawa Sta.		To Tamachi Sta.

Conclusion of a 100-year industry-		Conclusion of a memorandum
UTokyo Gateway Campus	of cooperation with the National
academia collaboration agreement
concept image	University of Singapore
with UTokyo