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AEON Co., Ltd.

Working steadily for even more sustainable procurement

Fish Baton handles an ever-increasing variety of MSC and ASC-certified seafood.

Recognizing that the products it manufactures and sells depend on the bounty of nature and raw materials procured from around the globe, Aeon has been working since 2011 to form guidelines to ensure more sustainable procurement.

Its sustainable procurement principle was formulated in 2014, followed by the 2017 announcement of policy and goals for 2020 concerning agricultural, livestock and fishery products, as well as paper, pulp, timber and palm oil.

With the wish to leave a rich food culture to generations to follow, since 2015 Aeon stores have been setting up permanent corners called Fish Baton, which sell MSC and ASC-certified sustainable seafood. As of the end of February 2020, 67 stores have this corner.

By 2021, the company plans to have all of its consolidated subsidiaries operating general merchandise stores or supermarkets acquire MSC and ASC CoC certification for marine product distribution and processing.

Aeon works to preserve the ecosystem in its rollout of stores as well. One example is the first FSC-certified convenience store in Japan, Ministop, built from 100 percent domestic FSC-certified wood, which opened in 2009. Many more quickly followed, and as of the end of February 2020 Ministop had 284 FSC-certified stores, with more planned.



Convenience store built from FSC-certified wood.