Quality and Safety

To Assure Complete Confidence in Our Products

In 2002, NISSIN FOODS HOLDINGS established the Food Safety Research Institute to develop scientifically based quality assurance, allowing consumers and their families to enjoy food with total trust in its quality and safety. The institute performs the critical tasks of checking the quality of daily production (central control system) and assessing the amount of hazardous substances that the product may contain. It also develops new testing and analysis procedures against emerging hazardous substances. Through quality surveys and process control at the manufacturing sites, we are taking crucial responsibility for the quality of our products.

The FOOD SAFETY EVALUATION & RESEARCH INSTITUTE in Shanghai, China commenced full-scale operation in January 2007, marking the completion of a system for restricting the export of China-originated raw materials to only those that have been confirmed to have good quality.

Since the raw materials used in our products are in wide variety and numerous and also are supplied from all over the world, we have developed NASRAD-550. This is a proprietary automated system for simultaneous detection and analyzes traces of agricultural chemicals and veterinary pharmaceuticals that they may contain. The system also checks allergenic substances. Furthermore, in April 2008, the Food Safety Research Institute obtained certification for ISO 17025 (the international standard for testing capabilities and management systems) on analyses of residual agricultural chemicals, veterinary pharmaceuticals, and microbe tests and is continuing to upgrade its quality control systems.

The Food Safety Research Institute also performs safety audits under Nissin’s Inspection Standards for Food Safety (NISFOS), established in 2004. It covers food safety management systems, general hazardous substance countermeasures, manufacturing standards, facilities maintenance and sanitation at the plants of raw materials suppliers. Evaluation is carried out objectively using inspection checklists, and the inspection results are expressed numerically as “Safety inspection points.” If the plant receives a low score, remedial guidance will be provided. In process control, the institute posts supervisors to supplier sites to confirm “4M Control,” (the confirmation of materials, methods, machines and manpower involved in manufacturing processes).

Analysis accuracy, quality surveys and process control are together the backbone of our product quality assurance.

Environmental Activities

For a Future of Healthful Food Enjoyment

To build a harmonious coexistence with society and improve the global environment, the Group established the Environmental Charter in 1999, a group-wide commitment to business activities that furthers the interests of environmental protection and resource conservation.

Since the start of fiscal 2008 (year ended March 31, 2008), the Group has implemented global warming countermeasures aiming at reducing CO2 emissions by fiscal 2011 to a level 13% below emissions in fiscal 2005. Our activities have steadily produced results. For instance, we have sharply reduced CO2 emissions by converting the fuel for the boilers used in noodle manufacturing at our main plants from heavy oil to natural gas, which emits less CO2 when burned.

In May 2007, we established the Basic Guidelines on Environmentally Friendly Container and Packaging Design. Expanding our environmental measures beyond production activities to the products themselves, in March 2007, we launched sales of Cup Noodle as a refill product called Cup Noodle Refill to lower the volume of throw-away containers and packaging materials. This ecofriendly product promotes the concept “Delicious eating in eco-style.”

In April 2008, we reduced CO2 emissions further by replacing the traditional styrofoam Cup Noodle container with the ECO cup, a newly developed paper container. The ECO cup name comes from the motto “For Ecology, for Customers, for Originality.” The ECO cup is not only eco-friendly, it is also consumer-friendly, listing allergenic substances and sodium chloride equivalents in a large, readable label, and improving preservation of flavor and freshness through better sealing performance.

As the pioneer inventor of instant noodles, which have become a “world food” in both name and reality, we will continue to engage in business activities aimed at the realization of a sustainable society.

Social Contribution Activities

  Out of a keen awareness of corporate social responsibility, NISSIN FOODS HOLDINGS engages in activities in and with local communities that contribute to the realization of a better society by promoting harmonious coexistence. In 2008, we launched the Hyakufukushi* project to carry on the socially beneficial activities of Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin Foods.

Follow-up on the Kenya Oishii Project

Since 2008, we have provided distribution support for the serving of Chicken Ramen in school meals for undernourished children in Africa, while simultaneously helping to establish local instant noodle production infrastructure to further economic independence within Kenya. This project was named the Kenya Oishii Project (oishii means “delicious” in Japanese). In 2009, we held a ceremony at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology, to mark the opening of a new laboratory building to house a donated instant noodle manufacturing laboratory and manufacturing equipment (to be collectively known as the Oishii Project Laboratory). The university was introduced to us by JICA (the Japan International Cooperation Agency), which supports the socioeconomic development, recovery and economic stability of developing regions.

Idle to Idol Project Trains Nature Experience Leaders

Launched last year in the first year of the Hyakufukushi project, the Nature Experience Activities Leader Development Project has been nicknamed the “Idle to Idol project,” because it gives retirees and other members of the baby boom generation a new and purposeful active post-employment alternative. This project gives Group employees and third-party company employees aged 50 or older special training toward certification as a volunteer guide for children’s outdoor activities. The Ando Foundation, established by Nissin founder Momofuku Ando plans to open the Momofuku Ando Nature Experience Activities Advanced Leader Training Center in April 2010 in Nagano Prefecture. The Group provides additional support for this undertaking.

The Canned Chicken Ramen Just-in-Case Project

The Group has donated newly developed long-term storage cans to three local governments in Osaka as disaster rations.

In Osaka, the birthplace of instant noodles, we have delivered to local governments a total of 100,000 servings of newly developed Canned Chicken Ramen (long-term storage cans for disaster relief). In light of the fact that food is the most necessary commodity in times of disaster, we developed this product to permit storage for three years. (The ordinary shelf life for pillow-type Chicken Ramen is six months and five months for Cup Noodle.)