Women, diversity behind Calbee's granola success

Tokyo

CALBEE Inc's granola snack had been around for 20 years, with no real change to its recipe or sales. Then, a female marketing executive turned things around by pitching the cereal as a time-saver for a growing class of Japanese consumers just like her: working mothers.

The strategy clicked, revenue jumped and so did the snack maker's stock price. Success coincided with a push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government to boost women in the workforce. More companies such as Calbee, whose chairman Akira Matsumoto is a vocal advocate of diversity, are starting to see working moms as a lucrative niche in a domestic market that's shrinking overall.