Scandal-Hit Confectioner Fujiya Reforms Organizational Structure

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Jan. 29–TOKYO — Scandal-plagued confectionary maker Fujiya Co. said Monday it will set up a committee of operating officers, a move aimed at shifting management power from conventional board members to the newly set-up body, to reform the company’s business practice.

Fujiya’s new president Yasufumi Sakurai revealed the change in the company’s organizational structure at a Tokyo news conference following the emergence earlier this month of a scandal involving the company’s use of out-of-date ingredients in its cake products.

“We are going to manage the company with new members,” Sakurai said, adding that he will make sure that the board promptly gives its nod to decisions made by the operating officers.

Kazuaki Tanaka, who chairs an outside panel advising Fujiya about reform, said at the same news conference that the committee of operating officers will consist of relatively young employees who are on the frontline of Fujiya’s business operations. He said they will be put in charge of Fujiya’s overall business rather than the current board members.

Tanaka, also a professor of political economy at Takushoku University, attended the news conference after the outside panel held its third meeting earlier in the day.

As for the timing of a resumption of sales of Fujiya’s cakes and other products, Tanaka said an organizational review for the sales resumption has almost been completed. “But we should not hurry. We should be discreet in (setting up) the date (for the sales resumption),” he said.

As part of its organizational reform, the company said it has also set up committees to take charge of corporate ethics and quality control.

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