Kirin Beverage Company, Limited

Kirin Beverage has been committed to creating a new beverage culture to meet consumer expectations through soft drinks based on the Kirin Group’s basic stance, a steady focus on quality and a consumer-first approach, which has been cultivated since our establishment almost half a century ago, in 1963. While Kirin Beverage provides unique products and offers consumers new value through consistent marketing that follows our Brand Purpose, we are also sharing the joy of food through our country-wide sales network and by creating sales floors based on a consumer perspective.

June 5, 2023

As part of the Kirin Beverage Group 2022–2024 Medium-Term Business Plan (2022 MTMP), we are working to regrow existing non-alcoholic beverage core brands, with a focus on Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha and Kirin Nama-cha, and to expand the sales of Lactococcus lactis strain Plasma (LC-Plasma)-containing beverages in the Health Science domain. Through these efforts, we will build a strong brand portfolio that showcases our strengths and improve revenue.

Furthermore, we are working to develop and establish a sustainable business infrastructure for the future and to promote the improvement of the cost competitiveness of our production and logistics systems. Through these initiatives, we are driving the Kirin Group’s CSV management and contributing to the resolution of social issues.

2022 Year in review

Until March 2022, the Japanese beverage market was affected by the semi-emergency COVID-19 prevention measures, but from April 2022, the market grew larger than the previous year due to good summer weather and the revival of economic and human activities.
Sales of functional and sugar-free teas grew because of the increasing health consciousness from not being able to see a future free of COVID-19.
Our core brands performed well in this environment because we promoted efforts toward the continual growth of the existing non-alcoholic beverages business and the Health Science domain. Compared to last year, the sales of Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha grew 3%, Kirin Nama-cha grew 2%, and LC-Plasma-containing beverages grew 26%.

2023 Initiatives

We have newly established a pledge to consumers, “Health with good taste for everyone’s daily life,” as a broad concept to integrate and accelerate our growth strategy. While focusing on health as the core of Kirin Beverage’s competitive advantage and contributing to consumer’s mental and physical health with good taste through health-driven products and services, we promote “sustainable recycling of containers and packaging” as part of the Kirin Group's Environmental Vision and contribute to future “communities” that connect people and society.

As in our 2022 MTMP, in 2023 we will continue to promote the re-growth of our core brands and challenge ourselves to focus resources on Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha and Kirin Nama-cha and to expand mid- and high-level price range products.
We will return to a customer-first approach and a steady focus on quality, cultivate a corporate culture that prioritizes quality, and promote our functional enhancement and our transformation into a proud and responsible organization. To be specific, we will promote initiatives to strengthen marketing-related organizational abilities and business processes, optimize our production and SCM systems, install and utilize ICT (Information and Communication Technology), and more.

Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha initiatives

Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha is one of the most consumer-supported brands of not only Kirin Beverage but also of Kirin Group, and it is the best-selling brand of black tea soft drink. When it comes to bottled Japanese black tea, we have continued to take on new challenges, like selling Japan’s first bottled black tea, since its release in 1986 and have been leading the black tea market. In 2022, we continued to provide consumers with the opportunity to enjoy black tea anytime and anywhere by following our Brand Purpose, “Happy Tea, Gogo-no-Kocha,” and prioritized Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Straight Tea, Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Milk Tea, and Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Lemon Tea as our 3 mainstay products.

Further, we want to provide more opportunities for consumers to drink black tea and to establish a culture of drinking black tea in Japan, so we are working to raise awareness of our sugar-free black tea, Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Oishii Muto (sugar-free). In Japan, the culture of drinking sugar-free tea, especially green tea, while eating, relaxing, etc., is widely rooted. We want to increase the opportunities to drink sugar-free black tea so that it can be enjoyed by everyone as equally as other sugar-free teas, and we thought we could provide consumers with new value in black teas, so in 2011 we launched Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Oishii Muto (sugar-free). Over approximately 11 years of raising awareness of the brand, the recognition and image of sugar-free black tea has been steadily spreading. Additionally, the rise in health-consciousness is causing a rise in the need of sugar-free beverages. In 2022, sales of the Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Oishii Muto (sugar-free) series grew for the 10th year in a row and sold over 10 million cases for the second consecutive year thanks to efforts to fully renew Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Oishii Muto (sugar-free) for the first time in 3 years and to renew Kirin Gogo-no-Kocha Oishii Muto Kaoru Lemon, the improvement of our products’ freshness, and our large-scale promotions of the brand as a black tea that goes well with bento.

Going forward, we will not only offer taste value in the form of black tea beverages but also various social values, mainly in the domains of Health, Community, and Environment, as a brand that contributes to the resolution of social issues.