Bifidus and the bet on a bacterium (1977)

Turning a disadvantage in scale into differentiation

At the core of this decision was a choice to step off, for a time, the field where being first in scale decides. So long as Morinaga made the same products as Meiji and Snow Brand and mass-produced them nationwide, revenue could grow while profit stayed thin and the rankings barely moved. Morinaga brought a different yardstick to the outside of that contest: a bacterium it had discovered itself. Making customers choose on what is inside rather than on how much there is can be read as an attempt, inside a mature industry, to convert a disadvantage in scale into differentiation.

Differentiation by bacterium did not, of course, guarantee safety. From the discovery of the strain to a product, and from the product to a functional claim backed by regulation, took a long accumulation of research and the patience to wait for it to bear fruit. That a quarter-century separates the 1969 discovery from the first Food for Specified Health Uses approval in 1993 tells you this was no short-run play but a business built on settled, long-horizon investment. How far Morinaga’s choice to earn without chasing volume can hold its advantage in today’s market, crowded with foods carrying function claims, remains hard to judge — along with the direction of a dairy industry that has been moving from quantity to quality.