[Company analysis] Morinaga & Co.,Ltd. (森永製菓)

「Morinaga & Co.,Ltd. (森永製菓)」is a major Japanese confectionery company with a history of over 100 years. Since its founding, they have been producing caramel and other western confectioneries. This company is a brother company of「Morinaga Milk Industry(森永乳業)」and has its head office on the same site. In 2017, there was rumor of a business integration between「Morinaga Confectionery」and「Morinaga Milk Industry」, but it was eventually discontinued. The number of consolidated employees is approximately 2,751.

 

1. Company Profile

2. Summary and Features

3. Major Business

4. Financial Information

 

 

 

1. Company Profile

 

※Unit is JPY million, as of 2019

Company name	Morinaga & Co.,Ltd.
Company name (Japanese)	森永製菓
Date of establishment	Wednesday, February 23, 1910
Headquarters location	〒108-8403 東京都港区芝五丁目33番1号
Capital	18,612
Consolidated sales	205,368
Consolidated operating profit	20,217
Consolidated total assets	175,837
Consolidated capital	97,193
Capital adequacy ratio	55.3%
Consolidated number of employees	2,751

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
「Morinaga Western Confectionery Factory(森永西洋菓子製造所)」was founded in 1899 by Morinaga Taichiro(森永太一郎) who completed 11 years of training at an American bakery, in order to popularize western confectionery to Japan. In fact, western confectionery, at the time, was a fairly high-class item in Japan, so it was not yet popular among the common people. However, in 1914,「Morinaga Confectionery」released "Morinaga Milk Caramel", a caramel-packaged product, which was a mega hit among the common people in Japan.

 

Since then,「Morinaga」continued to release a number of Japan's first confectionery products such as milk chocolate, drinkable cocoa, powdered milk, instant coffee. While expanding its scale, it has spread Western culture to Japan. Even now, the confectionery business such as caramel, chocolate, and biscuits are the main business of「Morinaga」and they accounts for about half of the total sales.  

Although「Morinaga」has a pioneering spirit in this way, it does not mean that they only handle products that never been sold on the market. On the contrary, they are famous for redeveloping unpopular item and turn it to a hit product. Therefore, this compnay is evaluated as a confectioner has high product development capabilities.

In the corporate culture, this company is a stereotype of typical Japanese company. Many of their competitors in the confectionery industry changed its business culture into performance-based, but「Morinaga」still keep spirit of "Wa(和)” which means harmony. This company is sometimes to be compared with「Meiji Group」, because this two companies have similar historical background and similar product lineup.

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Food manufacturing business

■ Beverage wholesale business

■ Real Estate / Service

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated sales		199,479	205,022	205,368
Consolidated operating profit		17,612	19,751	20,217
Consolidated total assets		185,032	179,782	175,837
Consolidated net assets		91,763	100,331	97,193
Breakdown of sales	Food manufacturing business	189,610	195,788	196,216
	Beverage wholesale business	6,858	6,686	6,664
	Real Estate / Service	2,457	2,036	1,909
	Others	552	511	578