By the fiscal year ended February 28, 2011, Circle K Sunkus had aimed to reduce the total weight of shopping bags used per store by 35% compared with the level in the fiscal year ended February 28, 2001, in partnership with various members of the Japan Franchise Association. Specific initiatives have included trimming excess material from plastic shopping bags and making them thinner and lighter, and requesting the cooperation of customers at stores. We thereby exceeded our reduction target by cutting plastic shopping bag usage per store by 37.4% in the year ended February 28, 2010, thereby achieving our initial target. In the fiscal year ended February 28, 2011, we achieved an even larger reduction than in the previous fiscal year, with plastic shopping bag usage per store reduced to 42.1% of the level in the fiscal year ended February 28, 2001.
Circle K Sunkus is engaged in food recycling using food residue, along with measures to curtail the generation of food waste. In the fiscal year ended February 28, 2010, Circle K Sunkus began selling at certain stores products including ingredients developed through food recycling activities.
We are promoting food recycling businesses in accordance with the Food Recycling Law of Japan. In March 2011, parent UNY Group, Prima Meat Packers, Ltd., Yamazaki Baking Co., Ltd., and four other companies jointly obtained authorization for a recycling business plan called the Food Recycling Loop. Under this plan, food residue, including boxed lunches, sandwiches and other food products that have reached their sales expiration dates at 56 Circle K and Sunkus stores in Tokyo, are recycled into animal feed. The animal feed is provided to pigs, with pork raised on this feed being used as food ingredients. In June 2011, we launched a deli roll that was our first offering from this food recycling business.