T. Hasegawa 2024 Leaders & Newsmakers

Jul 1st, 2024

Last year, T. Hasegawa achieved the highest globally consolidated sales in the company’s history.

courtesy of T. Hasegawa

This year's T. Hasegawa Leaders & Newsmakers feature is jointly answered by T. Hasegawa Co. Ltd. president and COO, Takao Umino, alongside T. Hasegawa USA, Inc., chief executive officer, Tom Damiano.

T. Hasegawa

Tokyo, Japan

2023 Sales: JPY 64,874M^a

L to R: T. Hasegawa Co. Ltd. president and COO, Takao Umino, and T. Hasegawa USA, Inc., chief executive officer, Tom Damiano.

Can you share three company highlights for the last 12 months?

T. Hasegawa’s business has continued to grow globally over the past year, as we strengthened our operations, expanded our capabilities, increased production capacity and introduced new technologies that advance the science of flavor development.

Last year, we achieved the highest globally consolidated sales in our company’s history but as in previous years, it was not without challenges. While post-pandemic restrictions eased and socioeconomic activities began to normalize last year, concerns about the impacts of global disruptions that affect trade routes, raw material availability and their associated costs, and currency depreciation have been a challenge over the past 12 months. Despite these unexpected obstacles, we have overcome each challenge to expand flavor and fragrance sales and grow in the U.S. and Asian markets by remaining flexible and strategic in our management while aligning with customer demand to execute effectively. As a result, our financial results remained steadfast with global consolidated sales hitting the highest level for three straight fiscal years, due to the increasing sales of non-consolidated and T. Hasegawa USA. Sales from global subsidiaries outside of Japan, including T. Hasegawa USA, increased from 45.9% to 46.5% last year.

Our newest manufacturing facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California, opened last year and represents an expansion that is already generating positive top-line growth quickly while maintaining our long-term vision to boost production capacity and benefit from increased scale. In 2024, we have embarked on the next phase of capacity and capability expansion. Our current facilities in Cerritos, Calif. continue to serve as an R&D innovation center and manufacturing of savory flavors. We have embarked on an extensive renovation of our R&D Center which will enlarge our flavor development and applications footprint with additional chemist labs, state-of-the-art equipment, and an expanded pilot scale facility. Our Cerritos manufacturing plant has also entered the next phase of capacity and capability expansion and we are very proud to announce that T. Hasegawa Cerritos is now a USDA-certified facility, which will allow us to expand our flavor portfolio into USDA-certified flavors.

The talented team remains the heart of T. Hasegawa. Our synergy with T. Hasegawa’s R&D center in Japan strengthens our research capabilities by sharing technical information throughout our operations to better align with global trends. Beyond R&D, our sales personnel, production managers and customer service team are a key part of our strategy to drive lasting customer relationships and broaden our flavor offerings and applications. One of T. Hasegawa’s key strengths is interfacing with our customers – our employees are passionate about helping our customers succeed by solving problems, maintaining open communication and becoming a true partner that helps develop effective food and beverage flavor solutions.

What are the major influencers for innovation in 2024 leading into 2025?

Technical innovations are the driving force of our business at T. Hasegawa. We strive to continually offer new flavor modulation programs and develop unique technologies that advance the field of flavor development and modulation. These technologies are driven by trends as well as challenges in formulating increasingly complex foods and beverages.

Our “Bridge to Tokyo” flavor development program continues to drive innovation and solutions for our customers. In this program, new technologies and flavor profiles are initiated by T. Hasegawa’s R&D team in Japan and further enhanced by T. Hasegawa USA to introduce new, relevant, and trending flavors in the Western market.

In terms of overarching trends that influence flavor innovation, we expect 2024 into 2025 to be a return to comfort, with familiar dishes providing consumers with relief from the hustle and bustle of life. The pleasure of savoring food and drinks is all about the experiences they offer and amazing tastes they bring to our mouths – but we also see comfort foods trending in a healthier direction. Consumers have an increasing desire for healthier foods and beverages, whether with core flavors or new unique flavors, in a way where quality and authenticity is key.

T. Hasegawa has innovated around these major influences and trends with a core portfolio of technologies to provide solutions to today’s challenges in ways that address quality and authenticity.

Our most significant technologies in recent years were the launch of Boostract^b, EmulsiTract^c, HaseAroma^d, ChefAroma^e. These technical innovations continue to provide relevant solutions to food and beverage development challenges and drive consumer satisfaction.

Boostract is a novel flavor modifier that enhances the way consumers experience food and beverages. Boostract adds or enhances kokumi (which translates to “rich taste” in Japanese), increasing the richness of taste while maintaining a balance between different flavors. This exclusive technology by T. Hasegawa allows us to help food and beverage brands deliver a consistent experience to consumers, enhancing the existing flavor profile while amplifying the mouthfeel, taste and texture. Boostract has also proven to be an effective masking agent, eliminating unwanted flavor notes in select food products while boosting the desired flavors in others. Boostract is well suited to be used in many different end-use foods and beverages such as dairy, sauces/dressings, beverages, savory, alternative protein/dairy, baked goods and more.

EmulsiTRACT is a proprietary fat mimetic technology that creates a thick, creamy sensation by combining edible fats and oils with components that enhance other flavors. This technology has a particle size close to traditional dairy milk, which provides functionality, thickness and richness to product lines where milk fat or fat replacers are often sought after to create a better-augmented texture. A significant feature of EmulsiTRACT is that this unique natural flavor modifier can limit the dependency on palm oil and other edible oils where supply chain challenges are still a concern. EmulsiTRACT is also very effective in the development of plant-based protein products – a category that has continued to grow each year. EmulsiTRACT is versatile technology with a wide range of applications across many categories such as dairy, sauces/dressings, beverages, savory, alternative protein/dairy, baked goods and more.

In recent years, we also introduced HaseAroma and ChefAroma – two innovative new flavor technologies designed to create more authentic taste experiences.

HASEAROMA is a proprietary research and enhancement technology that creates authentic sweet and savory flavors through an extensive sensory analysis process that isolates specific flavor molecules within foods and beverages. HaseAroma aims to reproduce that “first bite” sensation that we experience biting into a food for the first time, packed with intricacy and nuances of flavor. The unique process and technology of HaseAroma can reproduce the flavor profile of a specific fruit varietal such as a Golden Pineapple, Alfonso mango or White or Pink grapefruits. The benefits of HaseAroma aren’t limited to fruits and other sweet flavors, we can replicate the distinct depth of flavor achieved through cooking applications such as caramelized, sauteed, grilled, roasted and more. HASEAROMA can deliver flavor specificity in savory applications, such as differentiating between the flavor of chicken thigh or chicken breast versus chicken skin and importantly, doing so without the use of any animal products, creating a unique type flavor replicating the original taste. With the immense growth of vegetarian and vegan diets in North America, savory flavor technology like HaseAroma will continue to solutions to development challenges.

ChefAroma is a new flavor technology designed to deliver chef-inspired flavors in less time, providing a rich complex flavor that is true to original culinary recipes. Targeted to foodservice applications, ChefAroma uses reaction flavor technology and real food ingredients like butter, onion and wine to add complexity and intensity to foods. For example, ChefAroma can cut down on the prep time and be added as a base for a variety of soups/broths, condiments, glazes, ready-meals and other dishes to instantly deliver the distinct taste of restaurant quality flavors that have been cooking for hours, saving time and money.

"We strive to continually offer new flavor modulation programs and develop unique technologies that advance the field of flavor development and modulation."courtesy of T. Hasegawa

What are your main company focuses and/or goals for the next 12 months?

Over the next 12 months, our company’s focus is to continue to strengthen our operations, expand our capabilities, increase capacity and introduce new flavor and modulation technologies that help solve our customer’s challenges while delighting consumers.

Our primary goal at the company this year is to sharpen our competitive edge by becoming the fastest and most efficient flavor manufacturer in the market. We're targeting several key areas to achieve this goal. Importantly, we aim to significantly reduce the time it takes to bring new products from the drawing board to the market. Speed is of the essence in our industry and by accelerating our operational timelines, we can deliver innovative solutions more quickly than ever before.

Another major focus is optimizing our overall processes to boost our operational efficiency. We're also concentrating on improving our delivery metrics to ensure that every product reaches our customers on time and in full, enhancing their overall satisfaction and loyalty to our brand.

Additionally, we're fostering a culture of innovation and agility within our teams. By encouraging creative problem-solving and enhancing cross-functional collaboration, we aim to keep our processes lean and our products cutting-edge. This agile environment will also help us respond swiftly to market changes and customer needs, ensuring we not only meet but exceed expectations.

In summary, our goal for the next year is to streamline our operations, enhance quality assurance, and ensure customer satisfaction through faster market delivery, cost efficiency, and continuous innovation. These initiatives are designed not just to sustain but to grow our market leadership in the flavor industry, creating lasting value for our customers and stakeholders.