Occupational Health and Safety

We aim to create safe working environments by adopting a Health and Safety Management Policy each fiscal year, and by sharing our philosophy on occupational health and safety with employees.

Basic Policy on Health and Safety Management

Our goal under the Health and Safety Management Policy is to achieve a continual reduction in accidents. We are achieving this by maintaining a PDCA cycle in which accidents are analyzed each year in order to identify issues so that countermeasures can be included in the Health and Safety Management Policy for the following fiscal year.
The Health and Safety Management Policy includes both our basic policy and priority action items. It is reported to senior management after deliberations by the Health and Safety Management Committee.

Basic Policy on Health and Safety Management

We put the health and safety of employees first.
Accidents can and must be prevented.
Our managers and supervisors are constantly working to prevent industrial accidents by using risk assessments to detect and eliminate safety-related issues with machinery and equipment. We also use risk prediction activities to prevent unsafe behavior by workers and create safe working environments.
We are working to prevent traffic accidents by providing road safety and hazard prediction training, especially for young employees and older workers. We are also enhancing our road safety guidance activities in order to prevent accidents while walking or operating vehicles, including bicycles, en route to or from work.
Through our health management initiatives, we are helping to enhance the physical and mental health of our employees, and to maintain and enhance work environments that are safe, comfortable, and hygienic.
Individual employees help to eliminate unsafe behavior by raising their awareness of potential hazards. They are also working to maintain and improve their mental and physical health.

Priority action items

Occupational accidents

Traffic accidents

* Natural disaster risks include road blockages due to landslides, rising river levels, and other consequences of earthquakes, typhoons, and rainstorms, etc.

Measures to prevent minor and major fires

Health management

Targets for FY 2025

Zero occupational accidents in the workplace
Zero traffic accidents caused by Nisshin Seifun Group personnel
Zero long-term absences due to workplace accidents
Zero minor or major fires

Occupational health and safety management

Our initiatives to enhance our health and safety management systems include the establishment of a Health and Safety Management Committee made up of group company directors with production-related responsibilities, under the chairmanship of the Nisshin Seifun Group Inc. Director and Managing Executive Officer of the Technology and Engineering Division. We also created a Safety and Hygiene Management Office within the Technology and Engineering Division. The Health and Safety Management Committee meets once a year and reports the results of its deliberations to the Group Management Meeting, which is attended by directors and other officers of Nisshin Seifun Group Inc.
The Health and Safety Management Committee plays a central role in the implementation of PDCA cycles relating to occupational health and safety management under the Health and Safety Management Policy. We are particularly aware of the necessity of risk assessments as the “D” stage of the PDCA cycle, and we monitor the implementation of these assessments by group companies in Japan and overseas through audits conducted by the Health and Safety Management Department of Nisshin Seifun Group Inc. We also recognize the importance of audits from an external perspective, and we have been using third-party organizations to carry out assessments since fiscal 2016.

Health and safety management framework

Preventing occupational accidents through risk assessments*

We introduced risk assessment activities and expanded them across the Nisshin Seifun Group in fiscal 2006. These activities now form a permanent part of operations at all of our production and research facilities.
In fiscal 2017, we further enhanced our overall activities by introducing chemical substance risk assessments at the relevant business sites. Before starting new projects, including mergers and acquisitions, we implement prior checks of the safety management and occupational safety systems of the target companies, including their responses to directives from labor-related authorities concerning corrective actions.

* A risk assessment is the overall process through which risk levels are assessed and risk tolerances are determined.

Occupational accidents in fiscal 2024

Incidence of industrial accidents

There were 14 non-lost-time accidents and two lost-time accidents in fiscal 2024. The number of lost-time accidents was reduced by four from the previous year’s total of six, but the number of non-lost-time accidents increased by two from the fiscal 2023 total of 12.
The number of trapping and entanglement accidents and the number of tripping accidents were unchanged from the previous fiscal year at three and two respectively. There were 11 other types of accidents, including four resulting from cutting and grazing, and two involving from collisions.
About 60% of accidents occurred when workers were performing routine tasks, and 40% when they were carrying out unexpected and non-routine tasks. We are taking steps to improve working environments and create workplaces in which the potential for accidents is low by ensuring that employees carry out hazard prediction and pointing and calling before starting any work activity, continually collecting information about near-misses, and encouraging risk assessment activities. Other accident reduction initiatives include safety education and countermeasures for older workers, who tend to be more accident-prone because of their declining physical capabilities. There have been no fatal accidents involving employees of the Nisshin Seifun Group for over 30 years.

Number of workers injured
Type of accident FY 2022 FY 2023 FY 2024
Trapping/entanglement 5 3 3
Falls 2 2 2
Others 16 13 11

Scope: Direct or temporary employees (excluding part-timers) working for Nisshin Seifun Group Inc., Nisshin Flour Milling Inc., Nisshin Seifun Welna Inc., Nisshin Pharma Inc., Nisshin Engineering Inc., Oriental Yeast Co., Ltd., and NBC Meshtec Inc. (excluding subsidiaries and overseas business sites)

Lost-time incident rate (LTIR)*1
  FY 2022 FY 2023 FY 2024
Nisshin Seifun Group*2 1.43 1.75 0.57
All industries in Japan 2.09 2.06 2.14
All manufacturing industries in Japan 1.31 1.25 1.29

*1 LTIR = The number of injuries and fatalities resulting from industrial accidents*/the total number of hours worked x 1,000,000
(* Injuries that result in one or more lost work days, and accidents and injuries that cause the loss of a body part or function are included.)

*2 Scope: Direct or temporary employees (excluding part-timers) working for Nisshin Seifun Group Inc., Nisshin Flour Milling Inc., Nisshin Seifun Welna Inc., Nisshin Pharma Inc., Nisshin Engineering Inc., Oriental Yeast Co., Ltd., and NBC Meshtec Inc. (excluding subsidiaries and overseas business sites)

The number of traffic accidents increased by around 10% over the previous fiscal year’s total. Just under 25% of accidents were caused by Nisshin Seifun personnel or by inattention by both parties, while just over 40% were self-inflicted. Most self-inflicted accidents resulted from collisions in parking lots, while many of the accidents caused by other parties involved rear-end collisions with stationary vehicles, such as vehicles stopped at red signals or in traffic jams. There were also accidents in which vehicles collided with pedestrians crossing roads at green lights. We remind people about the need to check their surroundings even when the light is green.
Initiatives to reduce traffic accidents include hazard prediction programs using videos, and the installation of dashboard cameras, safety devices, and driver support systems. Information about accidents is shared across the group. For example, at business sites where employees have been involved in traffic accidents, we analyze the causes and propose countermeasures in reports, which are continuously distributed throughout the group after checking and the addition of comments by the Health and Safety Management Department.

Occupational health and safety activities

We implement audits based on our own health and safety standards at domestic and overseas business sites of the Nisshin Seifun Group. When accidents occur, we work to prevent recurrences by informing all workers about the locations, circumstances, and causes of accidents and any countermeasures implemented. We also send engineers and production staff from the parent company to ensure that safety standards are rigorously applied at overseas subsidiaries.

Preventing serious injuries caused by trapping and entanglement in machinery

In fiscal 2023, a total of three workers were injured due to trapping and entanglement in machinery. This is the same as the number for the previous fiscal year. Accidents are still occurring when people’s hands become trapped in moving parts of machines while attempting unaccustomed tasks, such as repairing machines, that are in operation. Accidents are particularly likely to occur when people are engaged in non-routine activities that are different from their normal tasks. We are striving to prevent recurrences by ensuring that workers always switch off machinery before working on it, and by implementing hardware-related countermeasures, such as risk assessments of the machinery used and modifications to prevent hand trapping accidents. We are also improving our software, including the revision of operator manuals, the display of warning signs, the promotion of hazard prediction activities, and the provision of safety education. We are also sharing information about work processes and countermeasures across multiple work sites.

Reenacting trapping/entanglement accidents

Occupational health and safety training

We implement a range of health and safety training programs for employees of our main group companies and their subsidiaries in Japan. The purpose of these programs, which are structured according to employee seniority, is to share our philosophy on health and safety with employees and provide environments in which people can work with confidence. The main programs are listed below.

Training at Group companies in Japan
Name and content of program Targets Number of attendees
FY 2022 FY 2023 FY 2024
Training for employees responsible for safety
This program is for worksite health and safety activity leaders. Participants share and exchange information about ways to improve health and safety at business sites. (One one-day course)
Health and safety activity leaders 19 17 13
Supervisor safety training
This course is designed to improve the skills of team leaders of business sites and employees who perform equivalent supervisory functions. (One three-day course)
Team leaders and employees who perform equivalent supervisory roles 18 40 42
Safety manager training
The purpose of this course is to improve the skills of business site safety managers and employees performing equivalent safety management and supervision roles in organizations. (One two-day course)
Safety managers and employees performing equivalent roles 0* 13 12
Follow-up safety training for supervisors
This program is provided to enable supervisors to update their training after a certain number of years. (One two-day course)
Team leaders and employees who perform equivalent supervisory roles 0* 15 16
Safety training for new employees (skilled workers)
This program provides initial safety training for newly recruited skilled factory workers. (One half-day course)
Newly recruited skilled workers 46 56 62
Safety training for participants in technical skill improvement programs
This program is designed to improve the safety-related skills of participants in technical skill (facility maintenance, analysis, etc.) improvement programs. (About two-hours per training program)
Participants in technical skill improvement programs 88 65 80

* Currently cancelled due to COVID-19

In addition to the above, we provide on-site participatory training in the prevention of trapping and entanglement accidents in response to requests from group companies.

In-house awards

Awards are presented to plants, research facilities, and business units that achieve excellent safety records, including zero lost-time accidents, serious traffic accidents, or fires.

Zero Accident Awards
Scope: Business sites that record three or more accident-free years in succession (Excellent Business Sites) or two accident-free years in succession (Improving Business Sites)
Accident-Free Hours Award
Scope: Business sites that achieve 500,000 working hours without accidents
Number of business sites receiving in-house awards
FY 2022 FY 2023 FY 2024
Zero Accident Awards (Excellent Business Sites) 9 11 15
Zero Accident Awards (Improving Business Sites) 3 6 2
Accident-Free Hours Award 2 4 4

Scope: Business sites of Nisshin Seifun Group Inc., Nisshin Flour Milling Inc., Nisshin Seifun Welna Inc., Nisshin Pharma Inc., Nisshin Engineering Inc., Oriental Yeast Co., Ltd., and NBC Meshtec Inc. (excluding subsidiaries and overseas workplaces)

Capacity building for subcontractors and other partners (Nisshin Engineering Inc.)

Safety requirements for subcontractors (Nisshin Engineering Inc.)

Infection prevention

As part of our commitment to fulfilling our supply responsibilities as a food manufacturer, we continually implement precautions against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases and issue procedures to be followed in the event that infections occur. Depending on the circumstances, actions to prevent the spread of infections include the establishment of a task force, the issuance of notifications to all employees, and the establishment of clearly defined reporting lines.
Our business activities are becoming increasingly global in scope. Employees transferred to our overseas business operations receive guidance in the prevention of malaria, which is prevalent in Southeast Asia, and other infectious diseases. We have established an Overseas Medical Assistance System to introduce medical institutions and arrange treatment for employees who are affected by accidents or illness, including infectious diseases.