Ajinomoto's new frontier in "food and the environment" in the 2000s (around 2007)

Ajinomoto's new frontier in "food and the environment" in the 2000s (around 2007)

In the mid-2000s, the Ajinomoto Group established its own "recycling-oriented fermentation system" in response to growing awareness of global warming countermeasures and resource recycling. The byproducts of amino acid fermentation are reused as organic fertilizer for sugarcane cultivation, forming a cycle of fermentation → agriculture → re-fermentation. At plants in Brazil and Thailand, this system has been implemented in cooperation with local agriculture to achieve sustainable production with less dependence on chemical fertilizers. In addition, the company is promoting energy efficiency through the use of gas and steam turbines, conversion to energy-efficient logistics, and the reuse of waste oil. In terms of water quality, the company set its own strict effluent standards and implemented environmental management comparable to that of developed countries in Asia and South America. These efforts were not mere environmental measures, but pioneered a sustainable society
model based on fermentation technology, and influenced later biomass and carbon-neutral policies.