Food sustainability is also from "tableware" Founded 113 years ago, the advancedness of a long-established manufacturer | Forbes JAPAN

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Mr. Naoki Mitani, Managing Director, Nikko Ceramics Co., Ltd.

What comes to your mind when you hear "food sustainability"? Many people may think of social issues related to food itself, such as food loss and the problem of climate change related to industrial livestock. However, when considering food sustainability and circulation, we must also look at the products, services, and mechanisms that support food. One of the best is tableware. Nowadays, it is difficult to procure high-quality soil and stone resources, which are raw materials for tableware, due to over-mining and residential land development due to increasing demand. On the other hand, especially in the hotel / restaurant industry, which handles tableware for business use, it is not uncommon for tableware to be discarded even if it is chipped or the pattern is peeled off from the viewpoint of maintaining service. The current situation is that the value chain for tableware is unavoidably a linear system of mining, manufacturing, utilization, and disposal. As with food itself, it is important to draw a path for shifting resources from a linear model to a more circular model when considering the sustainability of tableware. Nikko Ceramics Co., Ltd., a Western tableware maker founded in 1908 based in Ishikawa Prefecture, has begun to seriously tackle the transition to the circular economy of tableware. Known for providing high-quality tableware, including bone china, Nikko is well known in the hotel and restaurant industry. In April 2021, Nikko launched the project "NIKKO Circular Lab" to promote the circular economy of the ceramics business and the media "table source" to support the sustainability of restaurants, together with the sustainability promotion organization of the restaurant industry. , Also joined the Japan Sustainable Restaurant Association. Why did the company start working on sustainability and the circular economy at this time? This time, we interviewed Mr. Naoki Mitani, Managing Director of the company, about the background and efforts.

The relationship between business and sustainability that was seen with the aim of rebuilding the ceramics industry

Nikko is a long-established company with a history of more than 100 years, which was founded in 1908 in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture. Originally, it started with the company name of Japan Hard Pottery Co., Ltd., which makes hard pottery. The purpose of the establishment was to manufacture high-quality tableware in Japan and earn foreign currency. In 1978, we developed "Nikko Fine Bone China" with the content of bone ash increased to 50%. It has come to be said to be the whitest in the world. Since its founding, the business has diversified, and in addition to the Ceramics Division, the housing equipment business and the functional ceramic products business have become the pillars of the business. "Nikko Fine Bone China" (Source: Nikko Co., Ltd.), which was born in 1978, why did Nikko decide to pursue sustainability and make circular tableware at this time? The big reason for this was that the spread of the new coronavirus added to the crisis facing the ceramics industry. "I think the pottery business is a declining industry," says Mitani. Not only the company but also the Japanese ceramics industry as a whole continues to be in a very difficult situation. According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Japan Ceramics Federation, the annual production value of "daily ceramics" has decreased by about 70% from 78.1 billion yen in 2003 to 27.1 billion yen in 2018. The reasons for the slump are the increase in cheap imports and the long-term recession. Nikko's ceramics business has continued to decline since the 1980s, as the market is moving, but the company, whose main customers are hotels and restaurants, was directly affected by the new coronavirus. The "era in which the more you make, the more you sell" has already ended, but Corona has made the crisis even more apparent, forcing a structural shift in the business itself. Next page> Raw materials are depleted.The reality of the pottery industry

Sentence = Kiyokazu Nasu

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