Health and Nutrition
Policy and Approach
Skylark Group's fundamental policy is to support healthy dietary habits in response to our customers' growing health consciousness in recent years. We properly recognize and mitigate potential health risks associated with the meals we serve, while continuously driving product development aligned with health maintenance standards.
Developing Diverse Menus and Providing Options
In addition to developing vegetable-rich and low-carbohydrate menus focused on nutritional balance, calories, and low fat, we regularly review the portion sizes across all our products. Furthermore, we offer a wide variety of menu choices and portion options so that customers can select meals tailored to their age, constitution, and physical condition on any given day. We also provide a range of side dishes, toppings, and sauces that customers can freely combine, while actively conducting research and development into menus that supplement nutrients that tend to be lacking.
Appropriate Information Disclosure and Supporting Healthy Choices
To ensure our customers can select their meals with peace of mind, we strive to provide appropriate disclosure regarding sodium content, calories, country of origin, and the latest allergen information. Additionally, we take a multifaceted approach—including the prioritization of information delivery and strategic pricing—to enable customers to naturally choose high-value-added products with fewer potential negative health impacts in their daily lives. Moving forward, we will utilize digital menu books to develop system mechanisms capable of recommending optimal nutrition tailored to each individual customer.
Consideration for Children and Sustainability Initiatives
To ensure families with children can enjoy their dining experience to the fullest, we offer nutritionally balanced items, low-allergen menus, and "shokuiku" (food education) menus that allow children to learn through dining. As part of our commitment to the environment and quality, brands such as Musashino Mori Coffee, chawan, and La Ohana serve coffee made with 100% organic beans and Rainforest Alliance Certified beans (with a few exceptions). We aim to further expand our lineup of organic products moving forward.
Governance
We have established the Group Sustainability Committee to drive sustainability management across the Group. This committee deliberates and oversees policies, targets, initiatives, and progress related to our materiality (key issue) of "Health and Nutrition," and reports regularly to the Board of Directors.
For KPIs related to "Health and Nutrition," targets are set for each responsible Executive Officer and Director (department head level). We ensure highly effective governance by employing a system where the level of achievement is directly linked to individual performance evaluations (such as bonus variations and evaluation grade determinations).
Strategy
In recent years, consumer awareness regarding health and nutrition has risen significantly, leading to growing expectations for healthy menu options and nutritional balance even when dining out. Under these circumstances, as a food service provider, we aim to support consumers' healthy eating habits and contribute to the overall health promotion of society. We believe this approach will also earn consumer trust and lead to the long-term enhancement of our corporate value.
Regarding the materiality of "Health and Nutrition," we have identified the following risks and opportunities:
Risk Management
The Group Sustainability Committee oversees medium- to long-term risks and opportunities related to "Health and Nutrition," while the Group Risk and Compliance Committee oversees risks in general. The two committees work in collaboration to designate a responsible department for each risk that needs to be addressed, and implement appropriate preventive and responsive measures.
The details of deliberations by both committees are shared with Outside Directors in our effort to ensure the transparency of our risk management system. Furthermore, we have established a structure in which Outside Directors serve as advisors to both committees, allowing us to receive insights and advice from an external perspective. The Board of Directors receives regular reports from the Group Sustainability Committee and oversees the status of risks and the overall management system.
Indicators and Targets
Examples of Action
Nutritional Information and Labeling
Our in-store menu books and digital menu books show calories and salt content for each dish we serve. For some noodle dishes, in addition to the overall calories and salt content, we also display the calories and salt content of the soup so that customers can control their own intake.
With regard to the labeling of nutritional content, restaurants are not subject to mandatory labeling of nutritional information under the Food Labeling Act, but we have established the Labeling Guidelines for Promotion Materials as our own labeling standards in accordance with the Food Labeling Act, and practice lawful and appropriate labeling through strict operations, with labeling only permitted after a check by a specialized department.
Status and Progress of Response to Health and Nutrition Conscious Menus
Skylark Group strives to develop menus that allow customers to effortlessly enjoy healthy meals in a "one-plate" format as part of our commitment to health and nutrition-conscious options. This includes our "balanced plates," which offer a variety of items in a single serving, and an enhanced lineup of nutritionally balanced set meals.
In our set menus, we offer options that allow customers to customize their meals according to their personal preferences and health conditions, such as adjusting rice portions or selecting alternatives like side salads, soy bread, or multi-grain rice.
Our highly popular noodle dishes have also received positive feedback for allowing customers to enjoy their meals while remaining health-conscious. Examples include dishes featuring "a full day's serving of vegetables" for those mindful of carbohydrate intake, menus using spinach-infused noodles to reduce carb content, and options to substitute regular noodles with zero-carb or low-carb alternatives. Going forward, we will continue to prioritize health-conscious offerings across all our brands, beginning with items in high demand, such as noodle dishes and desserts.
Furthermore, we continue to provide "products with reduced negative impact," including these health-conscious menus as well as 100% organic coffee beans and Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee.
To promote the widespread adoption of these products, we strive to offer them at price points that are accessible for everyday choice. At the same time, we share information to empower customers to make these choices through clear labeling on menus and active information dissemination via our website, social media, and other channels.
Children's Menus
To enable families including children with allergies to enjoy dining at our stores, we are diversifying our low-allergen menu for children. While low allergen menus are generally biased toward curry, Skylark Group offers other low allergen dishes such as negitoro-don (minced raw tuna on rice) and doria (rice gratin), and is working to develop further recipes.
Participating in the Project "We Support Your Health Improvement"
Skylark Group supports and participates in the Osaka Healthy Restaurant Promotion Council's "We Support Your Health Improvement" project.
Initiatives include serving healthy recipes, including nutritional labeling of major menu items, provision of healthy menu items (such as plenty of vegetables and lower salt content), and responding to healthy orders (such as adjusting portion sizes and serving condiments separately), while at the same time accumulating knowledge of menu development that contributes to health.
We also actively participate in initiatives recommended by local governments, such as sponsorship of the "Adachi City Initiative to Eat Vegetables."
Reflecting Customer Feedback in Menu Development
We have established a customer service office and created a system that enables us to respond quickly in order to utilize feedback from customers to improve the quality of our products and services.
Customer comments, opinions and requests received by the customer service office are reported to management as customer feedback and shared with related departments to review store operations and improve products and services.
We also refer to customer suggestions, opinions and requests when changing recipes and conducting menus revisions. We also receive many opinions on health and nutrition. These are shared with management, and we strive to reflect them in our menus in response to customers' increased attention to maintaining good health.
- *Non-caffeine barley tea introduced based on customers' Twitter comments: We responded immediately to comments made on Twitter in April 2019 by introducing caffeine-free barley tea to drink bars at all Gusto restaurants in July. Jonathan's and Syabu-Yo offer caffeine-free Sokenbicha at all restaurants. In this way, we are providing beverages that even children, pregnant women and nursing mothers can drink with peace of mind.