Asahi was the unfortunate victim of a major cyberattack operation in September 2025 that nearly crippled operations and led to one of the most well-publicised instances of profit loss directly linked to cyber crime in the food industry in recent years
The beverage giant is banking on growth in its beverages business as well as its new East African acquisition to fuel recovery and get back on track after its infamous 2025 cyberattack
Calbee has introduced Body Granola, a personalised granola concept that customises granola toppings for each individual based on their own physical needs, mostly focusing on the use of different prebiotics
Very basically, the system involves a self-testing kit to analyse a consumer’s gut microbiome, after which it tailors the granola with the most suitable ingredients for individual needs according to the resulting gut type
The Japanese government recently also released its own national investment roadmap with initiatives and strategies to be implemented until 2040, covering 17 strategic sectors and 62 ‘major products and technologies’ across the board from aerospace to disaster prevention
Food technology has been designated as one of the 17 strategic sectors, under which are investment plans for four products and technologies: Plant factories, Land-based aquaculture, Food machinery and Novel foods
Consumer attitudes to food waste are tied to culture, but these Asian markets show this can be overcome to support sustainability targets
Japan’s Consumer Affairs’ Agency says food loss and waste (edible portions) in the country stood at 9.8m tons in 2000, of which 5.47m tons came from businesses and the remainder (4.3m tons) from households. By the end of 2030 the country aims to get this total down to less than half (4.35m tons) with businesses and households responsible for half of this wastage each
As consumers become more informed and mainstream food brands continue expanding into protein, sports nutrition companies will increasingly need to compete on scientific credibility, taste and clearly differentiated health benefits, not protein content alone
One of the ways to differentiate themselves is to explore clinically backed ingredients such as branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) and creatine
BCAAs are growing strongly in Japan and South Korea, while creatine is seeing particularly strong growth in India and Japan
