Eiji Koizumi
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He was born on March 26, 1915. On returning from the war, at the request of a consumer cooperative in Kameda, Niigata Prefecture, he took up contract processing of starch syrup made from rice and potatoes, which became the Kamedago Farmers' Union contract processing plant founded in September 1946. Once sugar became available, syrup stopped selling, and he shifted his main business to rice crackers. What decided the move was that senbei and arare were a lagging field where the complexity of the process had delayed mechanization and the big companies had not entered.
Selection
In August 1957 Kameda Seika was established on the basis of the Kameda Town agricultural products processing cooperative, and he became President upon its founding. He was the first President, with no predecessor. At the time there were about 30 local confectioners in Niigata, and wholesalers controlled both raw material purchasing and product buying, even calculating manufacturing costs. Banks treated them as "senbei makers are not eligible for loans," so no funding was available for capital investment. Because rice crackers keep and travel well, the market would consolidate, so without scale management would not be stable, and capital and technical capability were needed, as he later recalled.
Initiatives
He replaced a rice cracker process that relied on craftsmen's skill and intuition with analysis of the properties of raw rice and chemical changes, and developed machinery in-house. Around 1965 the company was spending ¥100 million a year on research and development. It opened a laboratory in 1960 and launched Salad Hope in 1961, Kaki no Tane with peanuts in 1966 and Happy Turn in 1976. In sales it bypassed local wholesalers to sell directly to wholesalers nationwide, and prepared a delivery network in advance for the emerging supermarkets. In 1975 it became Japan's top domestic rice cracker maker by sales, and in June 1983 he handed the presidency to his son, Hajime Koizumi.
Career
Career
KAMEDA SEIKA
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Aug 1957 | Representative Director, President |
| 1983 | Stepped down as President |
| 1983 | Chairman |
| 1992 | Honorary Chairman |
References 5
References (Japanese primary sources)
- Wikipedia「古泉栄治」
- 日本食糧新聞（1995年8月18日）「古泉榮治氏（亀田製菓創業者）、12日死去」
- 日経ビジネス 1990年1月15日号「古泉榮治（亀田製菓会長）横紙破りの気概を持って」
- 日経ビジネス 1991年11月25日号「古泉栄治［亀田製菓会長］時には策士たれ」
- 日経ビジネス 1986年3月31日号「亀田製菓 中小企業 多品種少量生産へ 米菓の老舗の転進なるか」