January 4, 2023

Conveyor-belt Sushi Companies are Focusing More on Opening New Stores Overseas

The company that operates "Sushiro" will open up to 60 stores overseas in 2023, more than double the number of stores it has opened in Japan. In some countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to subside, and restaurant visits are recovering as curfew restrictions are eased. Japanese food continues to be popular, and it will capture demand from the region's growing population.

FOOD&LIFE COMPANIES (F&LC), which operates Sushiro, the leading conveyor-belt sushi company in Japan, plans to open 50 to 60 stores overseas in a year through the end of September 2023. On the other hand, 18 to 22 stores will open in Japan during the same period, marking the first time that foreign countries will outnumber domestic countries in the number of store openings per year. By December 2022, the number of stores abroad reached 100, about 15% of the total number of stores in Japan (about 630 stores).

Kura Sushi, in second place, is expected to open its first restaurant in mainland China by the end of 2023. Hiroyuki Okamoto, the director, says, "In China, we aim to open 100 stores within ten years, and we will do so at a very high pace." It will also expand its store network in the US and other countries, increasing the number of overseas stores to 400 by 2030 (currently about 90 stores) and raising the ratio of overseas stores to 40% of the total store count (about 20%).