Otsuka Foods’ retort food line “My Size Plus Support 1g Salt Series” is expanding its lineup and developing healthcare channels, including dispensing pharmacies.
In March, the addition of two new products—“100kcal My Size Plus Support 1g Salt Chuka-don” and “100kcal My Size Plus Support 1g Salt Mapo-don”—to the existing two items, “100kcal My Size Plus Support 1g Salt Beef Curry” and “100kcal My Size Plus Support 1g Salt Oyakodon,” gave the brand a Japanese, Western, and Chinese-style lineup, and this, together with sampling activities conducted for medical institutions, proved effective.
The two new products were developed in response to requests from registered dietitians and pharmacists at dispensing pharmacies who said they wanted more items they could recommend to customers.
Kazuyo Abe, Assistant General Manager of the Healthcare Communication Department in the Sales Headquarters and concurrently Product Manager in charge of My Size for the Retort Team in the Product Department, said in an interview on October 23, “We introduced these two new products because we believed that if people with dietary restrictions could have even a little more enjoyment in choosing what to eat, they would feel more familiar with the brand.”
For the sampling campaign, direct mail was sent to medical institutions such as clinics specializing in hypertension and diabetes, and applications were received from far more facilities than initially expected.
Through the sampling effort, the company aimed to create a ripple effect from the medical institutions receiving the shipments to nearby dispensing pharmacies and patients.
Shipments began in June, and by sharing the shipping status with sales representatives and working to newly develop healthcare channels, the company gained the sense that “as of September, in-store placement had reached 1.4 times the level of the previous year.”
At present, so that medical institutions can use them in a variety of nutritional guidance settings, the company published a booklet on 10g of protein in April and a booklet on 1g of salt in August, distributing them free of charge to medical institutions and to approximately 500 Nutrition Care Stations nationwide.
The booklets were supervised by Professor Yayoi Tanaka of the Faculty of Nutrition at Kanto Gakuin University, who is also a board member of the Japan Society of Home Nutrition Management, and by registered dietitian Hayato Kaneko of BALENA.
Regarding the booklet, he explained: “In the 1g reduced-salt booklet, the first half explains how important salt reduction is. It also allows readers to check their own salt intake. The second half introduces side-dish recipes that can be eaten together with the 1g Salt Series. The total salt content, including the side dish, is designed to come to 2g.”
