A point at which to reassess confidence in the full-year plan following the first-half upside in ordinary profit

First-quarter revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2027 was ¥5.906 billion, up 5.5% year on year. Operating loss was ¥39 million, an improvement from the ¥142 million loss recorded in the same period a year earlier, while ordinary profit turned positive at ¥19 million from a ¥150 million loss. However, quarterly net loss was ¥5 million, indicating that the increase in revenue has not yet flowed through to bottom-line profit.

The full-year forecasts are ¥28.5 billion in revenue, ¥700 million in operating profit, ¥700 million in ordinary profit and ¥420 million in net profit. First-quarter revenue progress was only 20.7% of the full-year forecast, approximately 4.3 percentage points below the 25% passage-of-time benchmark. Operating profit progress was negative 5.6% against the full-year forecast, and the company remains loss-making at the operating level. It therefore needs to capture seasonal demand for hot-pot soup bases and growth in food-service products from the second quarter onward.

In the 27 October revision to the first-half results forecast, first-half ordinary profit was raised from the previous forecast of ¥120 million to ¥420 million, implying an approximately 86.7% year-on-year increase. The company cited stronger demand for food-service sauces and expense reductions as the reasons for the revision, but the revised amounts for first-half revenue and operating profit, as well as the reductions by expense category, cannot be confirmed. At the next earnings release, it will be necessary to assess not only progress toward the ¥420 million ordinary profit target, but also to distinguish between the increase in gross profit from food-service demand and the effects of reductions in advertising, logistics and personnel expenses.