Yakult moves into US market

Yakult Honsha has announced that it will commence manufacturing of its
probiotic dairy bottles in the US for the first time in 2012.

The company is seeking a move into eastern seaboard US states.
The company will build the facility in an as yet undesignated location to cater for forecast growth.
“We are planning to expand our business in the US, starting sales of our products on the east coast, in the north and in other areas in the near future,” operations managing director Yoshihiro Kawabata told Reuters.
The company has been building a presence principally in west coast states of California, Hawaii and Arizona, but now wants to move into the east coast.
The company’s US products are currently imported from a production facility in Mexico, which is also one of the company’s strongest markets outside of its Japanese base.
About half of Yakult’s sales occur in Japan, where the product has been established for more than 50 years, with another quarter coming from the
Asia/Oceania area and the rest in the Americas and Europe. Sales have
hovered around the 25 million bottles consumed per day level since 2005,
according to the company’s 2009 annual report.
Yakult sells products in 30 countries and has stated it wants to expand to
45 countries in the short to medium term.
The company is also expanding its operations in China where it already has
two plants.
While Yakult outsells Danone in Japan and some Asian markets, it has
struggled in the US, as with Europe, against the might of Danone, which was
the first to establish itself in both markets.
Danone’s probiotic brands helped drive a rapid expansion of the US and
Canadian probiotic foods market that has seen it grow to be worth $1.77bn
according to Euromonitor figures.