Milling and Grain had the opportunity to meet and interview Mr. Matsumoto at Satake’s Manchester office, and he is sharing his insights to the readers here. Mr. Matsumoto was born and raised in Hiroshima prefecture, Japan, and earned his degree in Business Administration from Tokyo Keizai University. He began his career at Satake in 1991 and has since served in many functions throughout the organisation. Before joining Satake’s Board of Directors in 2018, he served for eight years as the head of the Corporate Planning Office. Due to his knowledge and leadership experience, in 2019 he was appointed as the Senior Managing Director, and in 2020 became the Executive Vice President.
You have recently taken on the role of the company president after a long and diverse career in Satake. So how do you envision your leadership impacting the company’s direction, particularly in the areas of innovation and sustainable technology?
Satake was established 128 years ago. So, during these 128 years, all our predecessors have been focused on the engineering and development of new technologies. So, that is the most valuable asset for Satake Group. There is a Japanese saying called Fueki Ryuuko or Onko Chishin, which means learning from the traditional ideas. I think that it is important to keep on the good practice and good ideas from the past, but we have to be also changing to meet the current requirements in the world.
I am the first person to become the President that is not from the Satake family. I have a profound experience in sight jobs also, and for me, it is easy to understand what people in the company are doing in their daily works. My strength is that I have a good understanding about what is going on in this sense. I use the San Gen Policy, a Japanese approach to solving problems that arise in processes, to navigate the innovations, the proposals, all the development that suits the actual situation.
You export to more than 150 countries such as the US, the UK and Australia. What are your strategies for further expanding Satake’s market presence and enhancing local support in these diverse regions?
In Japan, we have built the business based on the rice market and the wheat and maize, which are the three staple foods. Africa is also one of the most important markets for us. In 2016, we have established our own office in the Cote d ‘Ivoire that we can focus more on the African market businesses. There are many different cultures and different requirements in the country. So, we are trying to provide the most suitable and the most matching services and products for each region of the Africa. That is also based on the San Gen principle. We have to know the realities of each country.
Technological advances are rapidly changing the grain processing and optical sorting industry. So how is Satake leveraging technologies to stay ahead of the curve? And what emerging technologies do you personally find most promising?
We understand well that we cannot just rely on Japan to service all the world. So, we understand that every country or every region or every crop is different from the country to country. So, we have to be developing the technology that suits each region and areas. In many areas like USA, Thailand, China, we do the technical development with the cooperation of the local people and the engineers from Japan to match requirements of those regions. So if we are just talking about Japan, we are working with some development like using steam technology to make a longer shelf life for the rice product. We are also focussing more on automation in the factories to allow them to do the more efficient operations. And we have developed some new technologies for the sake brewing using shingin technology. We develop our technology in a way the customer can sustain their business.
The flour milling and grain processing industry are crucial, but yet often overlooked by the younger generation. So, what efforts do you feel Satake should be making to raise awareness about the importance and innovation within the flour milling and grain processing industries among the younger generation, both in Japan and internationally?
So, in the case of Japan, we have the Satake Foundation, which is actually helping out the university students and funding them for their research and education. And we also run a training program for the younger generation, from elementary school to high school. We call it Okomega – school of rice. So, we invite the student to come to our office to see how we make the machines. The main point for this school of rice is that we want kids to know how the rice they’re eating every day is grown, dried and processed. And we also run the Satake College. So, during that course, the students visit the farm and they are actually experiencing planting and also, they are harvesting by themselves.
How do you balance the need for business growth and profitability with the commitment to sustainability and ethical practices within Satake and what measures are in place to ensure this balance is maintained?
We understand that SDGs or ISO compliance are very important. And sometimes if you think too much of the cprofit, it off -balances the SDGs & ISOs compliance. So, we always keep in his mind that we need to obtain a good balance in between these two factors. It is very important that all the staff in Satake understand the importance of these factors. So, we keep on educating the members. There are so many trainings the employees have to undertake regarding this every year. If a business is only good for buyer or seller– it is not sustainable. You have to consider other factors like society and environment.
The UN predicts that there will be 10 billion people in the world within the next decade, which creates a very big challenge for the food production sector. As a leader in grain processing technology, how do you believe Satake can contribute to the global food production or food security, and what measures are you taking to ensure that your innovations help address the food supply challenges?
So, again, the Satake has been doing business for 128 years, and we’ve been contributing to, not only the producers, but all the people in the world, including the consumers. So, Satake, in the next coming century, we’d like to dedicate our experiences to approach these problems, like the populations, the environments, and not only Japan, but all around the world. Especially in optical sorting, or milling technologies, we do have a very rich experience, and we are very confident that this will help the world’s pressure. So, as a motto of the company, we always say that we are aiming for the one step ahead with technology. So, we continue to strive for developing new technologies to support the world of operations and people around the globe.
