TOKYO, JAPAN — Naoto Masujima was appointed director and executive general manager, Overseas Business Division, for Nisshin Flour Milling Inc., effective June 25.

In this role, he will be in charge of existing overseas companies’ operations and development of new businesses. Masujima was previously in globalization, Corporate Planning Division, Nisshin Seifun Group, Inc.

Masashi Koike, executive officer, deputy general manager, Corporate Planning Division, has been appointed to Masujima’s previous position.

Nisshin Flour Milling Inc., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Nisshin Seifun Group Inc. (NSGI), is Japan’s largest flour milling company. The company has been in the process of building an international flour milling network, with bases already operating in Canada, Thailand, U.S. and New Zealand.

It acquired the Rogers Foods, Ltd. milling business in Canada in 1989. In 2012, Nisshin acquired Miller Milling Co., which at the time operated flour mills in Fresno, California, U.S., and Winchester, Virginia, U.S., and in February 2013 it purchased Champion Flour Milling Ltd. from Goodman Fielder for NZ$51 million.

In May 2014, Nisshin’s Miller Milling business acquired four additional mills — the Los Angeles, California, U.S. flour mill of Horizon Milling LLC and Oakland, California, U.S., Saginaw, Texas, U.S., and New Prague, Minnesota, U.S. mills of ConAgra Mills. When acquired these four mills had a combined daily flour milling capacity of 58,600 cwts.  In addition to turning Nisshin into a top U.S. flour milling company with nearly 100,000 cwts of daily milling capacity, the $215 million (about 22 billion Japanese Yen) transaction was pivotal in allowing an even larger transaction to move forward — the creation of Ardent Mills through the combination of the remaining milling operations of ConAgra Foods, Inc. and Horizon Milling LLC.

Nisshin Flour Milling’s other affiliates include: Nisshin Grain Silo Inc., which manages grain silo operations; Fresh Food Service Co., Ltd., which specializes in the sale of frozen noodle products and development of restaurants that serve wheat flour-related food products; Nisshin Management & Technical Consulting Inc., which provides broad support for Nisshin Flour Milling Inc.'s customer services; and Nisshin-STC Flour Milling Co., Ltd., a Thai joint venture that performs milling and sales operations in the Southeast Asian region.