' Mother ' Darling, Korin tries higher flight

Resilience in overcoming crises is one among the many dogmas that the direction of Korin likes to repeat. The company, created by Japanese immigrants Messianic Church, knows the challenges ahead to consolidate as a national provider of healthy foods. The first is to increase the scale of production. The second, a consequence of the first, is to reduce their prices in gondola to win the market.
For three decades in the country, the Korin (reads Kô-rin) won economic self-sufficiency and reached R $ 60 million revenue in 2012. The portfolio of 60 products still registers an hole in the accounts in virtually all segments of vegetables, vegetables, vegetables and fruits to honey, coffee, water and supplies to the ground. Are your 9.2 tons of chicken and 9.6 million eggs per year, the champions in sales, which carry the Korin on the back. "Are the most popular products," says Reginaldo Morikawa, Director of the company. "Until 2007, it was the Church that we financed. In 2008, went on to be the chicken ".
Chickens eat 100% vegetable ration and rest under trees and perches
All production, free of the evils associated with conventional agriculture, is held in the 172 acres of agricultural and industrial area of Korin in Ipeúna, São Paulo State. The plantations are not given. Laying hens eat feed 100% vegetable, resting under the shade of trees and perches-to "express their natural behaviour", as explained by Juliana Pereira, Coordinator of egg production. The broilers are not given antibiotics or growth promoters. The birds are vented automatically when the temperature hits in 27° C, and all have beaks-the production in conventional farms, the nozzles are cut so that they are not hurting under the stress of confinement.
Perhaps for this reason the Korin has fallen into the thanks of the pediatricians, that indicate the brand mothers who seek an alternative healthy eating for children. "People who buy Korin know what they are buying, even if you do not have anything written in the box," says Morikawa, referring to three certifications the company has it of organic foods, free of antibiotics (AF, the name international) and animal welfare.
Once a year, staff at the oram by souls of slaughtered animals killed
Formed by the Messianic Church Minister and a few years of climb the maximum position of Reverend, the Executive explains that philosophy that guides the actions of Korin (rings of light, in Japanese) is intrinsically linked to the Messianic. Not for nothing, his flock of 1.5 million devotees in the country responsible for the bulk of the clientele. And three of the seven directors of Korin have equal religious status (although belonging to the Church is not a sine qua non for working on it).
By philosophy, Morikawa concerns the way to see the agriculture and its method of production. Healthy soil, he says, produces not only plants and animals healthy but healthy men. In addition to animal welfare, the Korin also has the tradition of praying for them once a year, always in the month of August. "We ask God that the birds that existence to be saved in the spirit world", says the Executive. Worship involves all employees who participate in the slaughter, as well as Board members and guests, and serves to zero out the spiritual debts generated by the death.
"We went against the grain, with a concept contrary to animal welfare to create bulk and ostensible"
The profit also is treated under an approach closer to that of a non-governmental organization than a conventional company. "Don't do the classical capitalism. All of our profit is reverted to the company, "Morikawa, which guarantees their peers in the company, does not receive bonuses.
According to him, the success of the brand is due to appeal to health food. The Korin does media campaigns. Its products, especially meat and eggs, have been disseminated by word-of-mouth and through the many presentations by consumers, teachers, nutritionists and doctors, all potential buyers or influencers.
Vegetable production in Ipeúna is 100% organic
Based on the Japanese tradition of agriculture, Korin began its business in the country in 1970, with the production of organic vegetables. But the watershed for the deal came only in 1994, when the chicken has become the flag of the Real plan, and the company saw the need to meet this market in a sustainable way. "We went against the grain, with a concept contrary to animal welfare to create bulk and ostentatious," said Morikawa.
Since then, Korin began to focus his efforts on the creation of birds without antibiotics, free-range and organic, varieties that respond today for just over 85% of the company's revenue.
With the chickens, the mentors of the idea hoped to also stimulate organic food production chain in Brazil, since the birds require corn and soybeans for feed. "It made perfect sense to the Messianic Korin's philosophy," says Cecilia Ifuki Mendes, Manager of quality and product development.
Foods packaged company bet is sanitized
The entry in the segment of meat resulted in a network of 25 chicken-producing partners from Korin, a producer of eggs and five corn. The partnership model was extended also to the vegetables and other products where the company started operating, adding around Ipeúna more 27 rural producers who follow the precepts of Korin production to delivery.
Verticalization also had key role in its expansion. With an average investment of r $ 1.7 million in recent years--which hit a record $ 2.8 million last year, the plant part of corn that Korin uses as food of birds (the highest cost company), went on to produce their own vegetable ration and created an input to the ground, used to retrieve the natural conditions of the Earth.
Piggybacking: Korin produces fertilizers and seedlings to meat
The company claims that the initiatives had positive effect: the broiler production increased from 500 tonnes per day in 1994, to 16 thousand tonnes in 2012 (episodes of avian influenza and mad cow in the middle of the road gave a boost in this performance). To 20 thousand laying hens and 17 thousand of his producer partner will be added in March other 40 thousand, as a way to boost the sector, that in 2012 closed in blue for the first time.
The challenge, however, remains winning a national scale and reduce the prices of its products, still well above the purchasing capacity of the majority of the Brazilian population. Korin frozen organic chicken can reach r $ 16 per kilo.
An alternative in which the company bet is to invest in franchises. In addition to raising their points of sale in the country, the measure would reduce the dependence of large retailers-with its high margins.
This option began to exit the role last week, with the opening of the first franchised store in Lauro de Freitas, the 15 km of Salvador. The next will be in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, where Korin already owns a shop in Vila Mariana. "One of the difficulties of selling organic is the concentration of production in the South and Southeast," says Morikawa.
The company, which came to be exported in 2002/03 for three months and gave up in the face of unfavourable exchange, began to look only to the internal market. For this year, wants to put on the shelves its first beef AF, which will be produced in Mato Grosso do Sul in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Organic cattle ranching (ABPO). Thread vegetables pre-washed and packaged is another bet for years to come, as it has registered good performance in the company's operations.
Judging by the demand for healthy food attainable Korin its plan of becoming a company far beyond mother's preference.