Quality assurance infrastructure and system

The Sapporo Group Quality Assurance System (formulated on November 30, 2011; revised on January 1, 2016)

At the Sapporo Group, we have formulated the “Sapporo Group Quality Assurance System.” It clearly describes the comprehensive food safety culture to be inherited by the Group, and is the foundation on which actions and approaches to quality are built on within each Sapporo Group company. In recent years, food safety has been demanded above all else. The Quality Assurance System was established with the goal of sharing the Sapporo Group perspective on food safety with domestic and overseas business companies and, in anticipation of accelerating global development, with overseas partners as well.

Committing to safe and high-quality products and services

The Sapporo Group carries out thorough compliance, and ensures that it adheres to the requirements of relevant laws and regulations. As a corporate group that handles food, we also guarantee the food safety of our products and services in all of our businesses worldwide.
As a result, we are able to provide our customers with safe and high-quality products and services in a stable and continuous manner.
In addition, in order to provide quality assurance that our customers can trust, it is vital that we prepare preemptively for quality-related issues. If, for any reason, quality-related issues should arise, it is essential that we implement countermeasures and ensure the issues do not reoccur; it is also essential that the countermeasures we implement are applied to other businesses within the Group as appropriate.
In order to fulfill the responsibilities outlined above, Sapporo Group employees will at all times work hard to improve the quality of their products, and continually enhance Group management systems for food quality and food safety.

The Sapporo Group Quality and Food Safety Philosophy

In the Code of Corporate Conduct, the Sapporo Group identifies “prioritizing safety and the pursuit of product and service quality” as a key concern, and seeks to ensure that “prevention-type quality assurance” is a principle shared throughout the Group. In this way, we intend to become a corporation that is trusted by our customers.
These initiatives entail continually improving quality and food safety assurance systems, as well as enhancing the human resources that enable the provision of safe products and services with high added-value. Through these activities, the Sapporo Group intends to provide its customers with satisfactory products and services.

The Sapporo Group Quality Action Guidelines

We will base our own sense of achievement on the satisfaction and trust of our customers.
We will respond in a swift and accurate manner to societies and their laws and regulations.
We will listen carefully to the voices of our customers and, while maintaining objectivity, carry out activities that are visible to our customers.
We will keep abreast of the latest trends and changes regarding quality and food safety, identify what issues we face, and implement reforms to resolve them.
We will ensure that Group philosophies and action guidelines are understood by all parties, and improve our teamwork and sense of unity.

The Sapporo Group Food Safety Program

We intend to identify any issues regarding food safety or quality that might result in problems for Sapporo Group products or services, and establish a Food Safety Program that manages these issues. By using a management system based on global standards and by implementing PDCA cycles, we intend to ensure that the Food Safety Program operates appropriately.

Quality Assurance System

The Sapporo Group has set up a Group Quality Assurance Department as an organization to facilitate permeation of a “prevention-type quality assurance” system within and outside of the Group. The Group Quality Assurance Department also monitors whether each operating company has been steadily implementing daily quality assurance activities. Regular meetings with managers of Quality Assurance Departments from each company in the Sapporo Group are held to share information on quality risks and to ensure measures are taken for risk reduction. Furthermore, the Group Quality Assurance Department and each operating company instructs and monitors procurement clients, manufacturing contractors and domestic/overseas offices under their jurisdiction to improve quality throughout the entire food chain from product planning, development, procurement and manufacturing, to storage and distribution.

Establishment of Global Quality Assurance Systems

Operations for permeation of the “Food Safety Program”, the basics of quality assurance activities, are being made in Group companies overseas as well. Besides having each overseas company comply with local laws and regulations, a quality assurance system based on the “Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)* management system benchmark specification” has been constructed according to the products handled and service features of each company.

*GFSI is an organization established in 2000 by the consumer goods-related organization Consumer Goods Forum, with the participation of 70 countries and 650 companies from all over the world. The organization’s primary goal is to reduce food safety risks throughout food supply chains all over the world. As a pillar of this activity, the GFSI certifies existing food safety monitoring standards that satisfy its criteria.

Quality Risk Management

To brace itself for serious quality problems, the Sapporo Group has constructed a Risk Management System which offers swift information sharing of quality risks between operating companies to prevent any issues from happening. Furthermore, regular drills on risk correspondence are conducted at each operating company to reinforce abilities to correspond to risk issues.