Gerber baby food japan

Gerber Taking a Lesson From Foreign Babies : Food: In trying to increase its share in the Pacific Rim, the company has had to set aside its notions of what babies eat.

Babies may be babies the world around, but in Japan, they eat “rice with young sardines.” In the Philippines, they go for “strained mango.” And in the pastoral farmlands Down Under, Aussie tots eat “lamb stock stew.”

Those culinary quirks are just a few of the cultural nuances Gerber Products Co. has had to master in launching an aggressive drive into the Pacific Rim. The Michigan-based firm, which dominates the U.S. baby food market with a 70% share, is now looking East as part of a new international strategy.

Gerber first entered the Pacific three decades ago, with licensing agreements in Australia in 1959, Japan in 1960 and the Philippines in 1972. But the company admits that it was “dozing at the switch” in the past and today commands just a 15% market share in Japan, said Michael Cipollaro, president of Gerber’s international division.

Meanwhile, such competitors as Heinz and Nestle were plunging into Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian markets.

Shortly after Chairman Al Piergallini joined Gerber in April, 1989, he hired Cipollaro to turn things around. Since then, Gerber has begun beefing up efforts in Japan and is expanding into Asia. Deals are in the works to set up manufacturing facilities in China and possibly India, as well as an alliance with a Thai firm to manufacture, market and distribute products throughout Southeast Asia.

The lures: Huge potential markets, including two of the world’s most populous nations, along with affluent consumers in Japan and in the economic tigers of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.

“We were like all other companies initially and figured everyone would like what was American and buy American,” Piergallini said in an interview. “But it is evident that each country not only likes different foods, but also has different feeding habits and practices. ”

Take Japan, for instance. The biggest hurdle may be getting mothers to buy prepared baby food in the first place. There, as well as in South Korea, a more traditional society creates pressure for a young mother to stay home and make meals for the family from scratch. Such pressure is particularly acute in extended families, where the grandmother is often the household’s dominant female, according to a Gerber analysis of East Asia markets.

“A good mother is one who makes homemade food for the child,” said Cipollaro.

As a result, he said, Japan’s entire market for ready-made baby food is only $120 million. In contrast, France’s market is twice as large with half the population.

To develop the market in Japan and elsewhere, Gerber is not merely waiting for a change in women’s status. It is positioning itself as an unparalleled expert in the baby food field. Among other things, it is marketing its products as part of a “scientifically based” feeding plan that considers a food’s composition, vitamins, minerals, textures and digestibility in introducing certain foods at certain stages in an infant’s life.

The food containers are actually labeled as “lessons” to add to the authoritative air. Lesson 5, for instance, offers everything from “salmon stew” to “egg and rice” for infants from seven to eight months old.

“The strategy is to demonstrate that Gerber brings to them something they cannot give the baby themselves,” Cipollaro said.

The firm also is adapting its products to the local market. Because the Japanese like freeze-dried products, Gerber has developed that line--even though it bombed when attempted in the United States.

And Gerber is establishing a “council of experts” in Japan and elsewhere in Asia to advise the firm on feeding practices in each country. That step will help give credibility to a firm that may be a household name in the United States but is still little-known in Asia.

Even the advertising is being carefully tailored. The firm produced five ads of babies of different races engaged in different activities: in front of a computer and a piano, playing soccer and football, lifting barbells. Focus groups in Asia showed a clear preference for the computer and piano ads--not to mention the Asian and white babies.

“Clearly in Asia--and this is the Chinese influence first and foremost--the mother was most attracted to the intellectual aspiration approach,” Cipollaro said.

In an analysis of the East Asian market, the firm also identified several other challenges. Perceptions exist that commercial baby food is not fresh or nutritious, which the firm plans to combat with an “all natural” positioning. Its cereal packaging is perceived as inferior, with concerns over spoilage and infestation.

There is confusion over where to shop for baby food, since distribution channels vary depending on the product. Grocery stores may carry the fresh jarred food, while pharmacies carry the freeze-dried, and Gerber hopes to unify both channels. Its Japanese partner, Meidi-ya, is currently working on gaining access to pharmacies in Japan.

In any case, the thrust into the Pacific Rim is part of Gerber’s overall move to develop international markets. It has begun exporting to Eastern Europe and, in just one year, built up Poland as its second-largest export market. (Israel is the largest.)

The firm is currently hiring staff to open another venture in Budapest, Hungary.

“It’s a green field--they’ve never had processed baby food before,” Piergallini said.

The shift overseas comes after he divested the firm of several unrelated businesses--furniture, car seats, even trucking--and directed attention back to its core business of babies. So far, it has begun to pay off. International sales rose 15% and operating profit increased by 59% in 1990.

The target now is to make not only Gerber foods, but also care items and clothing, the undisputed market leader for children from infancy to three years old.

But while the green fields of Eastern Europe beckon, Asia promises the biggest rewards, Piergallini said.

“The Far East has a hell of a lot of opportunity--a lot more people and disposable income,” he said.

Baby Food in Japan - Baby Can Travel

Traveling with a baby is so fun and rewarding, but it has its own set of challenges. For example, it can sometimes be hard to find baby food when traveling to a different country, especially when the culture is quite different like in Japan. For parents visiting Japan with a baby, we’ve prepare this guide on how to find baby food in Japan.

After a very long travel day from Canada, we arrived in Tokyo with baby early in the evening. We desperately wanted to sleep, but that we needed to find baby food for breakfast before going to bed. Venturing out into the world’s largest city after dark in search of baby food is a little intimidating and I’m not ashamed to admit that our baby’s first breakfast in Japan came from a nearby 7-11.

Thankfully, once we got settled in Tokyo, we found the search for baby food was easy, fun and rewarding.

For the rest of your family, here is a list of foods you MUST try in Japan!

5 Places to Find Baby Food in Japan

While in Japan you will have four main sources of food for your baby: drug stores, grocery stores, restaurants and convenience stores.

1. Drug Stores in Japan

Drug stores are an excellent source of baby supplies in Japan. At Japanese drug stores you will find prepackaged baby food, baby snacks and diapers. If you are traveling to Japan with a baby, note that unlike North American grocery stores, most of these essential baby products are not found in Japanese grocery stores.

Our baby was eating solids while in Japan, but we still made good use of the excellent Japanese drug stores. During our trip to Japan with our baby, we bought diapers and lots of finger-food snacks (baby crackers, etc.) for snacks on-the-go. Having good baby snacks was especially nice as we enjoyed the many easy walks around Kyoto.

2. Grocery Stores in Japan

If your baby is on solid food, your job of feeding your baby in Japan will be more complicated. As most parents want to find healthy food for their baby, you’ll get the majority of your baby food from grocery stores.

With the language barrier and cultural differences in cuisine, Japanese grocery stores are a little intimidating, but it will be a fun, exciting and rewarding experience trying to find food for your baby.

Here is a list of healthy baby-friendly food found in Japanese grocery stores:

Bread
eggs
milk
yogurt
cheese
bananas
carrots
red and green peppers
oranges
apples
frozen vegetables (peas, corn, etc.)
yams
peanut “spread”
cereal
ham
pasta
ground meats (beef, pork, etc.)
granola bars.

With the list of healthy baby food available from Japanese grocery stores, here are some basic meal ideas that you can make during your visit to Japan with a baby. All these baby-friendly meals can be made in a simple Japanese rental apartment kitchen:

Boiled carrots
fried eggs on toast
scrambled eggs with ham and cheese
frozen pizza (cooked in a toaster oven)
pan fried dumplings
basic stir fry (soy sauce, pasta, ground pork, veggies)
sandwiches (ham & cheese or peanut “spread”)
microwave steam pork buns
pre-cooked teriyaki chicken skewers and tempura vegetables from the deli.

Additional essentials available at Japanese grocery stores:

When visiting Japan with a baby, you’ll need to buy more than just baby food. If you are staying in a rental apartment, you can buy laundry detergent at supermarkets. If you crave a morning cup of joe, you can also buy coffee in Japan in supermarkets.

3. Restaurants in Japan

Visiting a Japanese restaurant with a baby will likely be your biggest food challenge in Japan. High chairs are very rare at restaurants in Japan, so you may wish to bring a portable travel high chair with you.

In addition, many Japanese restaurants will not have English menus. We found the Google Translate app to be a life saver in this situation, both for reading menus and for communicating with restaurant staff.

Japan has many styles of restaurants, and not all are baby friendly. The following types of Japanese restaurants are baby friendly and should make your life a little easier:

Popular Japanese chain restaurants, such as Curry House, Yoshinoya or Ootoya have tourist friendly menus in English and/or with pictures. Take-out food is typically easily available at these Japanese restaurants.
Shokudō are easily identified by their display cases showing off their menu items using plastic food replicas. The Japanese food here is typically more ‘authentic’ than the chain restaurants, but is still typically easy to order and you can have confidence in what you are ordering.
Bento boxes are good choices to buy for the family as they have many different items within. Your baby will likely not like all the offerings, but there is usually something within each box they will like. Bento boxes are available in convenience stores, department stores and specialty stores.
If your baby is struggling with the different flavors of Japanese cuisine, you can always use the foreign fast food chain restaurants (McDonald’s etc.) as a backstop.

4. Convenience Stores in Japan

Convenience stores are plentiful in Japan. Chains such as 7-11 and Lawson are literally everywhere and they offer a decent selection of food basics. Baby friendly food on offer at Japanese convenience stores includes milk, bread, cheese, meat, pre-made sandwiches and wraps.

5. Food From Home

In addition to these choices, it’s always a good idea to bring as much familiar baby food from home as you think you can get through customs. There will always be times when your baby just wants something familiar and comforting and having their favorite foods from home will be well received.

If you wish to bring food from home when visiting Japan with a baby, please be aware that you cannot bring produce (fruits and vegetables) over international borders. In general, pre-packaged baby food is acceptable to bring from home.

More Japan with Kids

7-Day Itinerary for Kyoto with Kids
5 Family Friendly Hikes in Kyoto
6 Playgrounds for Visitors to Kyoto
5 Playgrounds for Visitors to Tokyo

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Rospotrebnadzor has suspended deliveries of baby meat puree Gerber (Nestle) to Russia due to the content of chlorine in it

April 26, 2010, 15:10 Business

Rospotrebnadzor continues its attack on Nestle. Suspended deliveries to Russia of baby meat puree from Gerber - "daughter" of the Swiss manufacturer, in which the supervisory authority suspects the presence of chlorine. The manufacturer does not comment on what happened, citing the lack of official claims.

Rospotrebnadzor has suspended deliveries of Gerber Products baby food made from poultry meat to Russia. According to RIA Novosti, this decision was made "because of the use of chlorinated poultry meat in their production." We are talking about four types of baby food: turkey and chicken in its own juice, as well as turkey and chicken sausages. The limitation of supplies, according to the chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko, is due to the fact that

the company, “despite the ban on the processing of poultry meat and poultry products with chlorine introduced on January 1, did not change the technology and sources of raw materials” and “did not officially tell us about the replacement of this meat.”

No other manufacturer is mentioned in the message.

According to the decision of Rospotrebnazdor, “the use of chlorine in water for cooling poultry meat leads to the accumulation on the surface and in the thickness of poultry meat of by-products of the oxidative activity of free chlorine, primarily organochlorine compounds (chlorophenols, chloramines, trihalomethanes and others), which are dangerous for human health. " Therefore, now producers must process poultry meat with water in which the chlorine content does not exceed the norms established for drinking water. As a result, all American chicken meat, which accounts for up to 80% of imports, fell under the ban. At the last talks in March on this issue between Moscow and Washington, “producers from the United States undertook to find a meat processing technology that would suit Rospotrebnadzor.”

The ban on baby meat puree is already the second attack by Rospotrebnadzor on the global manufacturer of baby food, Nestle (since 2007, American Gerber Products has been part of the Nestle group).

Last week, for the first time in the history of Nestle's operations on the Russian market, Onishchenko did not allow the company to supply baby puree from Finland. The refusal was due to the "weakening of technological discipline."

The company itself found out about the ban from the media and hurried to make an official statement that their products are of high quality.

Help

According to the analysts of the Step by Step Group of Companies, the volume of the baby food market in Russia in 2009 amounted to about 167 thousand tons, in monetary terms - about a million

The Moscow office of Nestle refuses to comment on what the company has not been officially informed about. “As in the case of Mr. Onishchenko’s earlier statement regarding baby food, which the company planned to supply from Finland, Nestlé did not receive official notification that Rospotrebnadzor banned the supply of four types of Gerber baby food from the United States to Russia, in containing poultry meat.

We contacted Rospotrebnadzor, but have not yet received a response,” says Marina Zibareva, Nestlé Russia Corporate Communications Manager.

At the same time, two of the four Gerber products mentioned by Onishchenko - "Turkey Sausages" and "Chicken Sausages", as the company assures, have not been imported to Russia for several years. As for canned meat-based products “Chicken in Own Juice” and “Turkey in Own Juice”, they have all the permits confirming their safety and quality, Zibareva notes: “As part of the inspection control, these products regularly undergo all the necessary tests, including the content of organochlorine compounds. The results of the analyzes show full compliance of the products with safety indicators, including the absence of organochlorine compounds.”

In Rospotrebnadzor, just like last week, the phone of the press service is not answered, Onishchenko's reception staff prefer not to answer journalists' calls. An official request sent by Gazeta.Ru to the department on April 22 remained unanswered.

However, if Rospotrebnadzor sent notifications to Nestle, the company will most likely receive it only by the middle of the week. “Usually, if something is sent to us, then by the most ordinary mail,” explains Zibareva. “It usually takes at least a week.”

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