Accelerating Transformation and Global Growth to Lasts 100 Years as a Health Creation Company President and Executive Officer

The ITO EN Group Mission in an Era of Transformation

Since its foundation, ITO EN has conducted business with the spirit of “STILL NOW,” where we constantly ask what customers might still be dissatisfied with now, based on our management principle of “Always Putting the Customer First.”Currently, the world is in a time of drastic change. Rapid inflation, advances in AI, and more are dramatically transforming the environment surrounding us.

Amid these rapid changes, alongside the execution of the five-year Medium-Term Management Plan announced in 2024, we are strongly communicating to all Group employees the need for “transformation and reform in mindset and behavior,” as we embark on our journey toward becoming a company that endures for 100 years. Each individual is encouraged to think about what should be fundamentally reconsidered and what should be reformed while being sustained, and to proactively drive transformation. As Team ITO EN Group, we will steadily build a system in which all employees work together with a sense of ownership to achieve sustainable growth through the collective strength of the organization.

Toward Our Long-Term Vision of Becoming a Global Tea Company, Guided by Our Group Mission as a Health Creation Company

The ITO EN Group operates under our Group mission of being a Health Creation Company that creates three types of health value—mental and physical health, the health of society, and the health of the planet—to help customers achieve healthy, fulfilling lives and build a sustainable society. Creating these three types of health value is, in essence, putting the principle of “Always Putting the Customer First” into concrete practice through our business activities.

Our long-term vision, under our Group mission of being a “Health Creation Company,” is to become a “Global Tea Company.” Leveraging our uniqueness and strengths—such as our ability to create products starting from tea farms through the Tea-Producing Region Development Project—we create value in flavor and health through a wide range of tea products and business activities, and aim to realize our vision of becoming a “Global Tea Company” by expanding this value globally.

Medium-Term Management Plan: Five Key Strategies

Our overseas business, which aims to globalize the Oi Ocha brand, is expected to achieve further growth going forward. In FY4/2025, profitability improved significantly, and particularly in the United States, we have achieved high profitability through strengthened sales of the Oi Ocha brand. While demonstrating leadership in retail channels as a pioneer of green tea and matcha internationally, we are working to further reinforce our sales network and product supply systems to achieve both expansion in scale and sustained profitability. As of the end of October 2025, Oi Ocha is available in 50 countries and regions, with a business location in India scheduled to be established by April 2026, and plans to expand into Africa in the future.

As a foundation to support the growth of our overseas business, we are also undertaking full-scale structural reforms aimed at solidifying our existing businesses in Japan. We have begun comprehensively reviewing all costs, with optimization of the entire supply chain as a key initiative. From FY4/2026, we established a Supply Chain Strategy Department directly under my supervision and are promoting comprehensive structural reforms from product planning and development to ingredient procurement and sales from a holistic perspective. At the same time, we are reviewing our sales bases and logistics operations in response to changes in retail and distribution, consumer purchasing behavior, and logistics networks. Through the reorganization of sales bases and partial outsourcing of delivery operations, we are optimizing our business structure and shifting to a system that enables sales staff to focus more on creating retail displays promotional proposals. We believe that steadily advancing these structural reforms across the entire supply chain will strengthen our growth strategy and enhance our market competitiveness.

In creating new businesses, we are placing particular focus on matcha as we aim to expand our business areas. The global matcha boom represents a significant market opportunity for the Group. Starting in FY4/2026, we will further strengthen our matcha business by reinforcing coordination across the entire supply chain—from ingredient procurement to product development and sales. Internationally, we will lead efforts to further popularize and establish Japanese green tea and matcha in overseas markets.

Promoting Sustainability Management Identifying the 7 Material Issues

To achieve sustainable growth into the future, we are steadily advancing initiatives from a medium- to long-term perspective toward becoming a company that lasts 100 years. One such initiative is our seven material issues, which we have revised and newly identified in light of changes in the external environment and the formulation of our Medium-Term Management Plan. These initiatives are aligned with the key strategies of the Medium-Term Management Plan and embody concrete actions to reinforce our management base while contributing, through our business, to the creation of the three types of health value mentioned above—mental and physical health, the health of society, and the health of the planet—thereby aiming to balance the sustainable Group growth with solutions to social and environmental issues.

In particular, “Achieving Well-being through Eating Habits” and “Building Sustainable Agriculture and Supply Chains” with green tea, matcha, and coffee are closely linked to our growth strategies, including our overseas business and domestic structural reforms.

To support these initiatives and steadily advance structural reforms and business transformation, we recognize that securing and developing human resources is of critical importance. Amid significant changes in the hiring environment, we are placing emphasis on enhancing the capabilities of each existing employee through human resource development, career support, and the creation of a comfortable and rewarding work environment. To enable employees to think independently and act proactively to achieve high performance with a limited workforce, we are promoting improvements in productivity and transitioning to more efficient organizational management, including fundamental reviews of working hours and work styles.

Through the transformation of organizational culture and employee values, as well as reforms led by management itself, we will create an environment in which each employee can play a leading role. By maximizing the collective strength of the entire Group, we will achieve sustainable growth.

Alongside the achievement of our Medium-Term Management Plan and from a long-term perspective toward becoming a company that lasts 100 years, we will continue to promote sustainability management.

Spreading Japanese Green Tea and Matcha Culture Worldwide for Future Generations

As the ITO EN Group celebrates its 60th anniversary, we now have a total of 46 Group companies in Japan and abroad (as of the end of April 2025). We are now in a period of the greatest transformation and reform in our history. Through our Medium-Term Management Plan, we will solidify our foundation for sustainable growth through globalization and swift structural reforms. While this transformation and reform will not happen overnight, I will move forward with strong resolve as a leader to develop the ITO EN Group into the “new ITO EN Group” that the future generations can be proud of. While I understand that investors have expectations for short-term performance improvements, I hope you will support our growth from a medium- to long-term perspective and build a partnership to move forward together toward new growth.

ITO EN started as a tea retailer. I believe that, as a leading tea company, the Group’s mission is to spread Japanese green tea and matcha culture around the world through the Oi Ocha brand and pass it on to future generations. The Group goes beyond tea to carry all kinds of products and services that are delicious and beneficial to health, such as coffee, vegetables and fruit juices, and dairy products, which we will connect as a whole to growth.

Coming together as Team ITO EN Group, we will build a foundation for globalization in our tea business to become a Global Tea Company while expanding our business areas as a Health Creation Company on our path to building a company that lasts 100 years.