Reporter | Wu Rong
Edit | Ya Han Xiang
Sushiro has accelerated its expansion in Chinese mainland.
Following the opening of the first store in the mainland in Guangzhou's Oriental Baotai Plaza last year, it has quickly landed in Guangzhou Grandview Plaza, Wanlinghui and Yuehui City, and the R&F Haizhu city store is also under renovation and is expected to open in May this year. According to Sushiro's plan, 42 to 46 stores will be opened in Chinese mainland within three years.
The predecessor of this veteran Japanese food brand was "Sea bream sushi", which opened in Osaka, Japan in 1975, and it was not until 1984 that it officially engaged in rotary sushi. At that time, rotary sushi had been popular in Japan for nearly 30 years. With the upgrading of local consumption, the decline of rotary sushi, synonymous with low quality and low price, the Japanese public believes that good sushi is only available in high-end restaurants.
Sushi lang, who was born in this context, tried to seize the market through the "high quality + low price" strategy, and launched 100 yen per plate of sushi. It is also special in that sushi is delivered using 2 conveyor belts, the lower rotary table delivers sushi to all customers, and the upper level delivers sushi exclusively for each table of customer orders.
Such a strategy worked in the ensuing bubble economy, and Sushi Lang was able to develop rapidly. In 2011, Sushiro was crowned the champion of rotary sushi sales in Japan for the first time. According to the official website, by 2021, Sushiro has more than 600 stores in Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, with a turnover of more than 200 billion yen.
Stores usually adopt a large store model, using a combination of card seats and rotary tables, and also provide one-person food seats; sushi is divided into four price brackets of 10 yuan, 15 yuan, 20 yuan and 28 yuan. (Photo: Wu Rong)
In fact, sushiro is not the first time to enter the Chinese mainland market.
In 2012, it reached a partnership with Shanghai Hutchison Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. to set up a joint venture, Sushilang Shanghai Co., Ltd., and announced that it plans to open 200 stores in East China by 2020. Unfortunately, from 2013 to 2014, the growth rate of Sushiro's performance slowed down, and the plan to go to sea was also forced to be suspended. It was not until 2015 that Sushiro changed coaches and the plan to rejuvenate performance was restarted.
Affected by The shrinking population and rising prices in Japan, the domestic food and beverage consumption market in Japan is shrinking day by day. Not only Sushilang, but also a large number of Japanese companies have been stimulated to go overseas, and the Chinese market has become one of their important destinations.
According to 2017 survey data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 2015 to 2017, nearly 31,000 New Japanese restaurants were added outside of Japan, more than half of which were opened in China, and the number of Japanese restaurants in China increased by 74%, making it the fastest growing market outside of Japan.
Before entering the Chinese mainland market, Sushi lang first entered Hong Kong and Taiwan to open stores, with nearly 40 stores. According to data previously disclosed by Sushiro, Sushiro's single-store sales in Hong Kong have doubled those of Japanese stores. Such data allows Sushiro to see more possibilities for entering the Chinese mainland development.
In addition, Sushiro also made some preparations. In 2017, Genki Sushi's parent company acquired a 37.2% stake in Sushiro's parent company, Food & Life, for 37.9 billion yen (2.243 billion yuan) and created a joint venture holding company to manage the Sushiro brand and Genki Sushi's stores in Japan and Asia. More importantly, Sushiro hopes to harness the power of his collaborators. Yuanqi Sushi entered the first store in Shenzhen, China in 2010, and currently has more than 60 stores, most of which are located in South China, which can provide reference for Sushilang in terms of store opening, logistics, human resources and other aspects.
According to the Tianyancha APP, Sushilang (China) Investment Co., Ltd. was established in Shanghai in December 2020, followed by the establishment of a wholly-owned subsidiary, Sushilang Guangzhou Catering Co., Ltd., officially began its development in Chinese mainland.
The reason why we chose this time to officially enter the army, Guangzhou Sushiro Managing Director Matsuda Kazunari in an interview with the catering media "Catering O2O" gave the statement, "We want to open a store in Chinese mainland for a long time, and we have also done a lot of preparation and market research for this purpose, and have been paying attention to the development trend of the market." Until now, we think the time is ripe. ”
The first store in Guangzhou was chosen because "Guangzhou is the forefront of China's economic development, and it is relatively complete in terms of low temperature logistics and supply chain", in Matsuda Kazunari's view, Guangzhou people have always paid special attention to tasting the umami and original taste of food itself, which coincides with Sushilang's own style. If you can get the praise of the locals in Guangzhou, you will be more confident to open stores in other places in the future.
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Japan's domestic catering market has continued to be sluggish. According to data from the Japan Food Service Association, the size of Japan's domestic catering market shrank by 15.1% in 2020, while China has controlled the epidemic relatively well. Watami, which withdrew from the Chinese market during the epidemic, has re-entered China in 2021, and Maru Kameto Noodles, Yoshinoya, and Shikiya have also announced increased investment in China, and Sushiro naturally does not want to miss it.
Wooden tables and chairs with red, white and black brand color Japanese decoration style, in the epidemic can not travel around the world, such an environment seems to make people feel like eating in Japan. (Photo: Wu Rong)
However, in China's development, Sushilang is not without challenges.
After the market education of rotary sushi, helu rotary sushi, longevity sushi, genki sushi and other rotary sushi, Chinese consumers have more awareness of Japanese sushi, which also means that consumers' freshness in this category is no longer the same as in the past, if they cannot be persuaded to further repurchase in terms of taste, quality and service, the new brand is likely to be short-lived.
In addition to rotary sushi, in recent years, the categories of Japanese food in China have also begun to diversify, and there have been restaurants with main categories such as izakaya, yakiniku, and sukiyaki, and the dishes overlap with rotary sushi, but also have different emphases. Public data shows that in 2015, the number of Japanese restaurants nationwide was 23,000, and the current number has exceeded 80,000.
In China, the Japanese market is not only Japanese brands, but most of them are occupied by domestic Japanese brands. According to the food website FOODS CHANNEL, as of October 2017, the number of Japanese restaurants in China was only 1,057, accounting for only 3%, compared with about 35,000 Japanese restaurants in China during this period. Most of the owners and founders of these Domestic Japanese brands have worked in Japanese restaurants, learned about Japanese products and operating systems, and have a keen grasp of the needs of local Chinese consumers, that is, for Sushilang, they are competitors that cannot be underestimated.
In addition, food safety issues will continue to test the supply chain management and operational capabilities of sushilangs. The professionalism of Japanese food depends heavily on the supply chain, but the scattered market for Japanese food supplies is still a major hidden danger, in the case of salmon, there has been a big debate on whether rainbow trout is salmon" that has brought a big impact on the industry; in 2020, when the epidemic broke out, in the Beijing Jingshen Seafood Market, the relevant departments detected the new coronavirus from the cutting of imported salmon when sampling, and salmon was immediately pushed to the cusp, and the storm caused by it quickly swept the Japanese market.