The National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations (JA Zen-noh), which handles marketing and supply of agricultural products, announced Tuesday, November 19, that it will start marketing its own brand of processed foods in supermarkets, consumers’ cooperatives and convenience stores nationwide.
JA Zen-noh showed the same day 65 items of processed food to be put on sale under the Zen-noh brand this year, including ham, bacon, jaozi dumplings and rice cakes.
The federation plans to introduce 100 items every year in the three years until fiscal 2015. It set a target of selling JPY 1 billion of Zen-noh brand products this fiscal year, JPY 4 billion in fiscal 2014 and JPY 10 billion in fiscal 2015.
Developing the Zen-noh brand is one of the federation’s efforts to strengthen sales of domestically-grown agricultural products, which is the top priority goal in its three-year plan that started this year. JA Zen-noh Chairman Yoshimi Nakano said in a press conference that the federation hopes to make the new brand become Japan’s major brand which appeals worldwide.
The products will be made mainly from domestically-grown agricultural products and will be processed completely in Japan. The federation plans to export them in the future.
(Nov. 20, 2013)