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Yoshinoya resumes 'gyudon' beef bowl sales after 3-year hiatus(Kyodo News International (Tokyo) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 18--TOKYO -- Fast-food restaurant chain Yoshinoya D&C Co. resumed sales of "gyudon" beef-on-rice dishes Monday, about two years and seven months after removing the mainstay dish from its menu due to Japan's ban on U.S. beef imports over fear of mad cow disease. Yoshinoya prepared some 1 million gyudon bowls at about 1,000 shops across Japan for Monday's sales resumption. It will continue to sell gyudon bowls Tuesday and after on a limited basis for the time being as U.S. beef imports remain slack since Japan lifted its ban on the imports in late July. "I was waiting for this moment," said Takanori Umeki, 24, a University of Tokyo graduate student who was first in line at Yoshinoya's Yurakucho shop in central Tokyo. The Yurakucho shop prepared 1,000 gyudon dishes, with the regular bowl priced at 380 yen, up 100 yen from February 2004, when Yoshinoya was forced to remove gyudon from its menu due to the U.S. beef import ban. Despite light rain, about 50 people formed a line before the shop began gyudon sales from 11 a.m. As shop staff announced the start of the sales, people eagerly rushed into the shop with smiles on their faces. "I have almost forgotten the taste of gyudon," said Umeki, who waited in front of the shop from 11 p.m. Sunday. "I want to remember its taste today." "I don't have absolutely no concern about the safety of U.S. beef but I am not too worried," he said, adding the price hike of about 100 yen is unavoidable. Tadao Kato, the 33-year-old chief of the Yurakucho shop, said, "We are confident about serving dishes that customers can eat safely because we are using meat fully checked." "We would like to win customer trust by serving delicious dishes." After eating a gyudon bowl at the Yurakucho shop, a 15-year-old junior high school student from Gyoda, Saitama Prefecture, said, "It was delicious. There is no change in the taste." The opinion of other people in the town was divided. "I would like to eat U.S. beef so I can compare the taste with beef from other countries like Australia," said a 33-year-old worker, adding, "The U.S. beef should be safe since many Americans actually eat it." A 50-year-old housewife said she will "refrain from putting U.S. beef on the table for awhile" because she wants to take no chances and to confirm the beef is safe. Japan banned imports of U.S. beef after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States in December 2003. Consequently, Yoshinoya and other gyudon chains in Japan were forced to remove gyudon from their menu. Some restaurant chains in Japan later resumed gyudon sales using Australian and Chinese beef. But Yoshinoya, which depended solely on U.S. beef imports for its beef bowls, decided not to follow suit, saying it is difficult to secure enough beef able to produce the same taste of gyudon that U.S. beef provides. As a result, Japan's largest gyudon chain remained in the red for two straight years as the average number of customers fell to 500 per day after the suspension from 800. Yoshinoya hopes the resumption of beef bowl sales will allow it to swing back into the black for the business year to February 2007 with a group net profit of 2.2 billion yen. But some industry analysts said the gyudon chain's operations may be unstable for the time being because U.S. beef imports are still limited with higher prices. Following Monday's sales by about 1,000 Yoshinoya shops across Japan, gyudon dishes will be served only at the Tsukiji outlet in Tokyo on Tuesday and Wednesday. Beginning Thursday, 20 Yoshinoya restaurants in Hokkaido will join the Tsukiji outlet to serve a limited number of beef bowls each day. Between Oct. 1 and 5 as well as Nov. 1 and 5, all Yoshinoya restaurants will sell a combined 1 million beef bowls daily. Beginning Dec. 1, all Yoshinoya restaurants will offer a limited number of beef bowls each day, the company said. To see more of Kyodo News International, go to http://www.kyodonews.com Copyright (c) 2006, Kyodo News International, Tokyo Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |