Japan’s major rice snack manufacturer Kameda Seika Co. will invest JPY1bn (US$11.3m) in China and the US to boost production for these markets.
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Niigata City-based Kameda’s spokesman Takumi Yoshida said the investment will help the company become a “global food company”.
Kameda’s existing Chinese plant, in Qingdao, Shandong Province, already produces soy sauce-flavored seaweed rice cracker, available only in China’s foreign retailers.
Kameda is spending JPY100m building a new plant next door making new products including bean-based snacks, although a final product decision is awaited, Yoshida said.
The new plant should be completed by next autumn.
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By GlobalDataIn the meantime, some $10m will buy new production lines increasing capacity by 25% by March 2011 at Illinois-based TH Foods, a joint venture between Kameda and Mitsubishi Corp.
Production of TH Foods’ Mr Krispers and Crunchmaster rice-based snacks, (with flavours including sour cream, pepper and cheese) will increase as a result.
Yoshida would not reveal US and Chinese sales, but said overall annual sales reached JPY79.3bn for the year to the end of March, up 2.3% year-on-year.
