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(Date: Feburary, 2009)
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General Manufacturer of Veterinary and Livestock Breeding Equipment Aiming
at Commercialization of Biotechnology for Livestock and Improvement of Dairy
Farm Operations
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< Lines of Business >
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Development,
production and sales of equipment for veterinary and livestock
breeding, animal health management and soil/manure analysis
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Type > |
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Offer to sell parts and products
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Mr. Tetsuaki Tsuboi, President |
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Only General Manufacturer of Veterinary and Livestock Breeding Equipment in
Japan |
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The grandfather of Fujihira Industry's current president became
interested in the livestock field while working at a wholesaler of
medical equipment and set up an independent company for the
manufacture and sale of general medical equipment and veterinary and
livestock breeding equipment in 1944. Since then, the company has
launched new lines of business to meet with changes in government
policies. By 2008, it had grown to Japan's only general manufacturer
of veterinary and livestock breeding equipment. The company is also
Japan's only manufacturer of medical equipment for animals and holds
a dominant share in the domestic market for soil analysis equipment.
At the start, the company concentrated on sale of equipment for
cavalry horses, but after the war began development livestock
breeding equipment aiming at increasing food supplies in line with
new government directives. Later, from the viewpoint of maintaining
the health of livestock, it concluded that the state of the soil at
pastures used for feeding the livestock was critical and set up a
research center for soil in 1948. Through this, it began developing
and manufacturing soil test equipment. In 1961, under a directive
from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and working with national
research institutes, it began the production of test equipment for
milk and food environment sanitation.
The company obtained a
sales permit for imports in 1964 so as to increase its lines of
products and started importing quality products from the big
livestock producers of Australia and France. However, the imports
had to be changed to sizes appropriate for Japanese (for example,
the size of the grips had to be reduced) and made more user
friendly. Further, the company introduced milk composition analyzers
made in Denmark to the Japanese market at an early stage. Due to the
sales, the company was recognized by Denmark in 1989 for its
contributions to promotion of Danish exports.
The company
mainly sells to testing and research institutes of government
organizations, universities and local governments. These account for
80 percent of its sales. It has distributors in all of the
prefectures including routes for livestock farms. In the Japanese
livestock and farming field, the company is already a giant
presence, but it also has an eye on the future potential of the pet
market with its growing need for diagnosis and treatment of small
animals and in 1990 set up a sales company specializing in medical
equipment for pets. |
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Pig Sperm Photometer |
Cow Artificial Insemination Straw |
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Establishing Advanced Technology
for Commercial Use of Biotechnology for Livestock |
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Of Fujihira
Industry's sales, the livestock breeding field, mostly made up of
artificial insemination, fertilized egg impregnation, and breeding
equipment, accounts for 60 percent. The remaining 40 percent is
split between the farming field, mostly soil analysis, and the pet
field. According to President Tsuboi, the company is aiming at the
commercialization of biotechnology for livestock. It is seeking to
create and promote products utilizing advanced technology including
tissue culture and nuclear transfer. For that, it requires exchanges
with and cooperation from researchers in universities and external
research institutes.
A particularly important sector of
biotechnology is artificial insemination. One of the leading product
lines are artificial insemination devices such as the "straw
machine". There are only a few manufacturers of precision plastic
tubes (straws) for injection use in the world: just Fujihira
Industry and one each Germany and France. According to Mr. Tsuboi,
the technology for artificial insemination of cows is already well
established and is contributing to improved production of dairy and
beef cattle. In pigs, the rate of artificial insemination is only 35
percent. The company is working hard to develop devices for further
spreading the technology. To assist quality control of meat and feed
control, the company is further jointly developing and selling
devices for measurement of meat quality in live cattle.
In
soil analysis, the company has been collecting samples since the
late 1940s and consequently has established a large database
relating to soil composition. Its "Soil Color Chart" is being widely
used both in Japan and overseas. Further, due to the rising interest
in farm management and organic farming and to its ease of use, the
company's soil nutrient detector, "Dr. Soil", is being widely sold
in Japan at everywhere from farms to test institutes and is being
exported to China and Southeast Asia as well. Further, the company
is developing and selling various types of soil analysis equipment
to large Japanese users such as JA Zen-noh, farm improvement
centers, and agricultural testing and research institutes.
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Opening Up Overseas Markets by High Added Value Maintenance-Free Products |
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Fujihira
Industry's FHK brand is already well established in the dairy and meat
production industries in Korea and China. It has particularly long trade
relations with Korea and has been working through distributors there for
more than 20 years.
According to Mr. Tsuboi, sales in the Japanese
market alone are not high enough to solve the problem of the difference in
price and costs. Mass production is essential to enjoy the cost merits. For
this reason as well, he intends to aggressively open up overseas markets in
the future. For pig artificial insemination equipment such as pig sperm
photometers which the company plans to push in sales in the future, the
firm is interested in the Mexican and Chinese markets where pig farms are a
big business. Further, in the case of artificial insemination sheaths for
cows, point eye types are
popular in the U.S. and Europe, but the company's products are
side eye types which are superior in insemination rates. In
opening up overseas markets, products of such higher added values and
requiring less maintenance are believed promising.
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(By: Chieko Ogaki, Business Services Center, JETRO Headquarters)
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