Yakult Honsha Company, Limited (株式会社ヤクルト本社) is a Japanese multinational corporation. It produces Yakult, a probiotic beverage using lactic acid bacteria discovered by Minoru Shirota in the 1920s.[1] The company markets other products, owns the Tokyo Yakult Swallows baseball team and the Roaring Raymonds, and promotes “Shirota-ism,” a philosophy of affordable pricing and the belief that a healthy intestine prolongs life, as reported by the Financial Times.[2] Yakult operates in India through a 50:50 joint venture with Danone.[3]
History
Yakult Honsha was founded in 1955. Since 1963, Yakult has employed women, known as Yakult Ladies (ヤクルトレディー) or Yakult Aunties (ヤクルトおばさん), to deliver products to homes via bicycles or motorcycles. That initiative, enhancing female workforce participation, accounts for 60% of bottled Yakult sales. Their numbers in Japan declined from 65,700 in 1973 to 42,500 in 2009.[4]