Conveyor-belt Sushi Chain War 2024: A New Battle among Sushiro, Kurazushi, Kappa, and Hamazushi

Uobei, Choshimaru, Gatenzushi, and Chojiro are also trying to expand their influence.
How will each company make money after overcoming the PEROPERO incident and soaring costs?

Sushi is spinning on the screen.

A FRIDAY reporter witnessed a shocking sight at the Shinjuku Nishiguchi branch of Sushiro.

When the automated voice guidance system prompted him to take a seat, he found that no sushi was flowing in the lane. Instead, each table was equipped with a huge monitor measuring approximately 50 cm (8.5 in.) long and 1.5 m (8.5 in.) wide, showing a “virtual lane” where familiar sushi plates were being served.

The store is said to be conducting a demonstration experiment of “Digital Sushiro Vision,” or “Digiro,” which was developed by Sushiro to explore new possibilities for conveyor-belt sushi.

Last year, Sushiro’s market value temporarily plummeted by approximately 17 billion yen after the “Soy Sauce Peropero Incident,” in which a boy licked a shared soy sauce container on a social networking service.

Although things are picking up now, hygiene concerns will never go away in the minds of customers. So Sushiro shifted to a method whereby sushi is ordered via a touch panel and delivered directly to the customer’s seat. Although it has been derided by some as ‘not conveyor-belt sushi, but delivered sushi,’ Digilow has maintained the appeal of conveyor-belt sushi, whereby customers encounter plates flowing by on the monitor by chance, while ensuring hygiene. This is a trend that is likely to continue to grow in the future.

Sushiro, which operates 641 restaurants in Japan, the largest in the industry, experienced a slump in business performance from 2010 to 2011. Food journalist Junnosuke Nagahama explains.

The half-price draft beer campaign and the ‘soy sauce peropero incident’ that occurred between 2010 and the first half of 2011, as well as price hikes due to soaring raw material costs, had a major impact on the company’s performance. They raised the price, which had not been changed since the establishment in 1984, by 10 to 30 yen per plate in stages.

This drove away consumers who had been attracted by the low price. Sales have increased in recent months, but that only means that we are back to where we were.

Sushiro has turned its course in the direction of pursuing quality by setting aggressive prices, starting at 150 yen per plate at its city-center stores. Sales of “Tokuneta Ootoro” (large tuna), priced from 370 yen per plate, are going well.