| Akindo Sushiro Co., Ltd. | |
| Native Name: | Japanese: 株式会社あきんどスシロー |
| Type: | Kabushiki gaisha |
| Industry: | Retail (Japan) Food service (other countries) |
| Products: | Conveyor belt sushi |
| Location: | 〒564-0063 1-22-2 Esaka-cho Suita, Osaka Japan |
| Founder: | Yoshio Shimizu Yutaka Shimizu |
| Key People: | Kohei Nii (Representative Director and President) |
| Num Employees: | 1417 employees (30 September 2019) |
| Homepage: | (Japanese) (English) |
| Parent: | Food & Life Companies |
| Food & Life Companies Ltd. | |
| Subsid: |
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Akindo Sushiro (ja|あきんどスシロー) is a Japanese multinational conveyor belt sushi specialty store. It is headquartered in Suita, Osaka.[1]
Sushiro is currently the largest conveyor belt sushi company in turnover. It has more than 500 restaurants in Japan. The first overseas branch opened in Seoul, South Korea. In 2017, Taiwan Sushiro Co., Ltd. was established. On 15 June 2018, a Sushiro shop was opened in Taipei. In August 2019, it opened a branch in Hong Kong. In the same month, it opened its first branch in Singapore. In March 2021, the first Sushiro location in Thailand opened in Bangkok.[2] In September 2021, it opened its first chain in mainland China, in Guangzhou.[3] In November 2023, Sushiro Indonesia began operations at its first branch in Jakarta.[4]
A Japanese Consumer Affairs Agency report released in June 2022 accused Sushiro of false advertising, by claiming a "limited offer" of sea urchin and crab sushi while having no stock of these in most stores.[5]
On 29 January 2023, a video was published, consisting of a 17-year-old student in Sushiro Gifu Masakiten licking a soy sauce bottle and a cup before placing it back, sucking on his finger, and using it to touch sushi circling on the conveyor belts. This caused the stock price of Food & Life Companies, the parent company of Sushiro, to plummet. Its market value lost more than 16 billion yen.[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] In August, Sushiro dropped its lawsuit against the student, saying that he has admitted his "responsibility". His attorneys argued that the decrease in customers could have been due to competition from other restaurants.[11]
At the beginning of 2021, a two-day promotional event by Sushiro in Taiwan promised to serve free sushi to people with the word "salmon" in their name. This caused multiple Taiwanese people to change their names to include the word "salmon", an event the media dubbed "salmon chaos".[12]
Multiple Sushiro chains in Guangzhou, China came under fire for linguistic discrimination after the chain's supervisors banned the Cantonese language between employees on its online chat groups. Sushiro later apologised, amid local boycotts.[13]