Post Visit Review of Yakult

BRIEF BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF Yakult

Yakult is a Japanese probiotic dairy products created by Minoru Shirota in 1935. And Yakult was launched in Hong Kong in 1969 which is the the third overseas branch. Nowadays, all the Yakult drinks are produced in Hong Kong and distributed to Hong Kong and Macau markets.

Production line visit AND SHARING

Once we arrived Yakult, their staff introduce Yakult to us through a production line visit. Though this visit, we know more about Yakult's history, production process, and their products. We even have a chance to try on the fresh made Yakult.

The entrance of Yakult 

History of Yakult

History of Yakult

Advertisment of Yakult

Decoration of Yakult made by over 2000 Yakult drinks' bottle

Package of Yakult Drinks

The Yakult drinks that we tried

The Yakult dolls

Yakult bottles from different countries

VIDEO SHOWING

A video was shown to us to introduce some background information of Yakult, including the invention of this innovative product by Dr. Minoru Shirota. It is quite inspiring to us as the attitude of this company is adorable: The purpose of Dr. Minoru seems to be helping people rather than earning profit. However, such kind of thought has brought the Yakult company an unexpected profit as returned. Such attitude is the most important part that most of the companies lack of, since they mostly put the revenue first but neglect the basic needs of customers, and failure would probably be the result. 

Capture from the video

Q&A SECTION

1. How can Yakult deal with the increasing demand in China?

Regarding the production in China, Yakult has 6 factories in China to satisfy its own demand, which are located in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin. Unlike the production in Hong Kong, which only requires to fulfill the demand of Hong Kong and Macau, the production line and size in China are much larger scaled and structured. Also, the quantity sold is never Yakult’s utmost objective to run the business, their philosophy is all about providing a healthy and reasonable priced beverage as a preventive medicine. We can see the example in May 2012, there’s been an upsurge of demand from China since Yakult could allegedly prevent cancer, but Yakult claimed there would not be an increase of production.

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?

Yakult considers consumers' health. The state of one bottle hinders the sales of products. However, Yakult does not advocate consumers to intake more bottles in order to increase its revenue as it disobeys Yakult's vision. Yakult's researches shows that there is waste of supplement if a consumer intake more than one bottle. Yakult does not advocate any waste of product function. Therefore, there is no method to improve daily intake under health consideration. However, Yakult will advocate a concept that everyone has a need to take one bottle per day in order to strengthen one's body. It could be a strong promotion to explore its potential clients.   

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)?

According to the founder of Yakult, he aimed to provide a cheap healthy product which affordable by most of the people in order let them improve their health. So the main purpose for Yakult is not to obtain as much profit as they can and because Yakult had already gained their reputation worldwide, they can maintain their profit by the only current product line. And actually the Yakult factories in other countries produce other products like cosmetic, so they can also obtain profit in this aspect. For the Hong Kong factory case, deal to the area restriction, it is already pressurize for them to meet the demand for Yakult in Hong Kong and Macau, so recently they didn’t consider to come up with new products in Hong Kong.

As I mentioned in the above paragraph, deal to the area restriction in Hong Kong Yakult factory, they cannot afford to produce new products now and actually that’s also because they don’t have to do so. In Singapore, Yakult sells with different flavor like green apple, orange etc. The reason for Yakult to offer different flavors in Singapore is because they have many competitors in the industry, so they have to differentiate their products in order to increase their competitiveness there. In Hong Kong, there is not much substitute for Yakult, and they don’t have to produce more flavors to attract more customers.

Q4.Will you consider providing order sizes (volume) of Yakult?

According to Yakult’s information , there are different sizes of Yakult among the world in which Hong Kong one is the biggest. As a 100ml bottle of Yakult contains at least 100brillion of Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota which is totally enough for protecting our intestine daily and enhance the peristalsis of our intestine. Therefore, it’s useless and will be a waste to intake more Yakult as 100ml of Yakult per day is already enough for intestine protection.

On the other hand, due to hygienic problem, Yakult prevents people re-drink large size of Yakult after opening. As Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota is a bacteria, it is very easy for batteries to grow and deteriorate once they expose in air. Thus, producing small size of Yakult can prevent people keeping it overnight and re-drink after opening, also encourage them to finish Yakult at once.

Q5 What have you done in the supply chain management to handle this kind of perishable products.

Yakult is perishable because there is no preservative added. There is only 30 days before the expiration and the quality of Yakult may change due to the changed of temperature. Therefore, instead of outsource to the third party, Yakult manages the supply chain by itself.

1. All products are produced in Hong Kong.All Yakult’s live lactobacillus drinks are produced and packed in Hong Kong. These finished goods supply to Hong Kong and Macau market. For products of Hong Kong region, they will be sent to sales office either in Fo Tan or in Kwun Tong.

2. All products are delivered by refrigerated trucks.The Hong Kong Yakult has a total of 3 refrigerated trucks that are responsible for the transportation of Yakult drinks from factory to sales office, and from sales office to retailers. For the delivery to Macau, Yakult uses container with air conditioning system to maintain the Yakult drinks quality.

3. Yakult provides customer services to the retailer.The clerk from Yakult visits their customer shop regularly to monitor the condition that they keep the inventory of Yakult drinks. Besides, all inventories, which are out-of-date, can be exchanged by sending back to Yakult while Yakult will replace them by a new one until the retails sold out the entire inventory.

6. How do Yakult prevent the leakage of the secret of its recipe?

Yakult has a tight control over its production process, even though it is quite open for people to visit their factory, however, people are not be able to know any details of the production of Yakult. 

On the other hand, the important component, a good bacteria named “Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota”, is registered and only Yakult company can have the right to use it for production. As a result, even there are many similar drinks in the market, but there isn’t anyone which is having exactly the same taste as Yakult, and especially the bacteria contained in that tiny bottle.

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?

Much efforts are spent by Yakult to control the amount of probiotics in every bottle of Yakult, in both perspectives of the use of labor and machines. There is a checking to ensure that there are the qualified amount of bacteria in each Yakult, and the process would be done by using their workers to check each Yakult by the assistance of advanced machines.In order to let their customers to obtain the fresh Yakult, the company tried to produce only the amounts that required for the next day rather than producing a lots for inventory. What’s more, would be the compromise of Yakult that if a shop is unable to sell all the Yakult it ordered during the shelf life, the company is willing to send that amount for the company and help it to sell all until the last bottle. This method is also a way to ensure the probiotics level and quality are kept in a high quality when the product reaches to the end customers.

8. A quick skim through your website showed that you were planning on introducing Yakult to Ahmedabad, India in Feb 0f 2015. What drives your introduction; did you collect information from locals 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)?

The Yakult representative kindly pointed out to us that since Yakult is first and foremost a beverage seeing to improve intestinal health, it takes into consideration factors like of said location’s health statistics. For Ahmedabad, the representative mentioned that statistics showed the population was extra susceptible to intestine-related health problems, hence their decision to introduce Yakult to the region, it also helps that it is majorly a region of hot and dry climate, with Yakult’s cool and refreshing nature they are confident it will catch on.In closing, Yakult’s strategy for introducing their product to new regions is that the said regions’ need for the product health-wise.

9. Yakult provides home delivery service in Mainland China, Japan and Korean areas. Why don’t you provide such service in HK?

In fact, there used to be delivery service in Hong Kong. However, the sale was not very ideal. Besides, the culture and consumer behavior of Hong Kong is not same as Mainland China, Japan and Korea. Hong Kong people prefer to go to market to purchase. Thus, Yakult customizes their service in Hong Kong. They cancelled delivery service, and focus more on super market like ParknShop.

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?

Yakult in different areas has its own factory, and the products are in different sizes and tastes according to the local market demands and their own marketing strategies. Or in other words, the branches in different countries have autonomous rights in the local market.

11. Would you have other sustainable policies other than the bottle recycling (e.g. plastic cover)?

Yakult puts the sustainable development on a top position, and takes many measures under the concept. For example, in Japan, the bottles are recycled to make artificial limbs.

SUMMARY

Our group photo took in Yakult

By visiting the Hong Kong-based Yakult company, we have found Yakult’s long history and background of its healthy element. As Yakult is having two production lines recently, it has risen the burden of its supply chain. It takes Yakult to devote more effort in order to achieve efficiency. This visit doubtlessly widened our view of the production line and supply chain of Yakult as well as the importance of food safety and the procedure of surveillance. All of us have acknowledged the healthy idea behind Yakult and how they apply technology system in their supply chain. It is really a remarkable visit for us. 

REFLECTION

The visit to Yakult was very eye opening in the sense that we were able to observe how a production line operates. The representative that toured us kindly explained to us the number crunching of it all, it made us realize that a production line isn’t simply about gathering the demand for the day and producing that number. Lots of factors come into play, one such very important factor is the capacity of production, or simply the capability of the machines. If the math isn’t done right the company faces opportunity costs. Hence the importance of the capability of facilities, equipment and labor is a very important factor for any production line, became quite clear after this specific visit.

REFERENCES

http://www.yakult.com.hk/

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/509785/Brits-are-wasting-millions-of-pounds-of-probiotic-drinks