CBH Board on tour - day two by Trent Bartlett

The alarm went off at 3am for a few adventurous directors who were heading off to Tsukiji Market in Tokyo - the famous Tokyo Fish Market. There were unfamiliar sights and smells and a very unsafe environment - but they lived to tell their fish stories. Everyone else also needed to get up reasonably early, each of us separating our luggage to store at the Royal Park Hotel in Tokyo and just take an overnight bag for our flight to Takamatsu later in the day.

We had a quick but familiar breakfast this time before getting onto the bus to head for Nisshin Flour Tsurumi Mill. No sooner had one Director realised they had left their passport behind and we had to stop the bus while they ran back - when someone realised we were also missing a Director. We already had 2 great contenders for being fined for misdemeanours and we were not even 100m from the hotel!

 We arrived at Nisshin Flour Mill after a one hour bus trip, being fully briefed and updated on the importance of this visit by CBH Group. The Nisshin Tsurumi plant is the largest wheat flour mill in Japan, supplying 10% of the entire Japanese wheat flour market and is a long standing customer.

The Tsurumi Mill is on a 26 acre (106,800m2) site, located next to the heart of Tokyo City, on the waterfront of Keihin Industrial Area. The Tsurumi plant receives imported wheat directly from wheat vessels at its own berth, and supplies varieties of flours for bread, noodle, pasta, cake, snacks etc, for the east side of Japan. The plant has 7 milling units and is operated by 143 employees on a 2 or 3 shifts a day basis. The mills operate on 3 shifts working 24 hours a day.

Our delegation was welcomed by the Executive Director and his team and then shown one of the best presentations on the flour milling process many have ever seen. We all donned very flattering/figure hugging white coats, hair nets, hard hats, Velcro straps to clamp our pant legs above the ankles as well as gauze bootees for our shoes. We have since made sure all photos of the group modelling these outfits were destroyed – except this one!

Our tour of the flour mill and port left us very impressed. The cleanliness standards were incredible, as were the rigid processes of testing that the mill goes through to maintain its rare ISO quality system rating. The temperature inside the mill combined with the lab coats made it very warm indeed. Back to the office where we asked questions before the CBH Chairman presented the Executive Director with a gift and gave a thank you speech. Following a tour of the Mill we boarded the bus and were once again treated to a delicious lucky dip Bento Box lunch which we rushed down as we made the short trip to Haneda airport for the domestic flight to Takamatsu.

The third misdemeanour for the day occurred when the 2 groups were dropped off - Group 1 got off at Group 2's terminal and vice versa. The bus driver had to do another lap between the terminals and one group got off the bus and then the other group got on. As you can imagine, there was an incredible amount of sledging being thrown as we passed one another. By this time, you could imagine that our bus driver was going to be happy to see the end of us!

 An uneventful couple of flights later and we arrive into Takamatsu to be greeted with a lot of rain courtesy of an approaching typhoon with a rating of 11. After a quick confirming head count this time, we boarded our charter bus for Kotosankuku Hotel - a very traditional Japanese hotel. After checking in late that afternoon, all Directors met on the top floor of the hotel to experience onsen before dinner, which is a bathing ritual followed by stepping into a communal hot spring water bath. Andy and Jay went off to meet executives from Zenbakuren, Mitsubishi and Mitsuhiro Takabatake.

These organisations are important CBH customers and approximately 60% of food barley (shochu barley) is procured for Zenbakuren from CBH through Mitsubishi. Zenbakuren is the All Japan Barley Processors Association established in 1951. It is a cooperative association consisting of 66 grain processor members. At 6.30pm, the Board and representatives from our host as well as the President from Mitsuhiro Takabatake met to have dinner. The room had been laid out in a very precise way, with each person allocated a seat on the floor with a low tray in front of them where each dish of the evening was either placed or cooked in front of us. The opportunity to talk business with our hosts in such an environment was very special and particularly memorable.

A Japanese drumming troupe from a nearby town gave an impressive and energetic performance to demonstrate some of the favourite traditions of Japan. The dinner ended with speeches and an exchange of gifts from CBH and the scene was set for an important meeting of the Board with the broader organisations on Saturday. After doing our best to promote more CBH barley sales to Japan by drinking shochu, the Directors retired in pairs to share twin tatami/futon beds for sleeping in Japanese style on the floor. It was a truly memorable day that saw all Directors reflecting on the success of the Japan office and holding wide ranging discussions amongst us about some of our strategic considerations for supply chain development in Japan and Asia.