Sushi train restaurants have long been an iconic part of Japan’s food culture. Now, videos of people licking shared soy sauce bottles and messing with plates of food on conveyor belts are prompting critics to question their prospects in a Covid-conscious world.
Last week, a video taken at Sushiro, a popular sushi chain, went viral, showing a male customer licking his fingers and touching food as it came down the rotating belt. The man is also seen licking a condiment bottle and a cup that he places back onto a communal pile.
The prank has set off a deluge of criticism in Japan, where such acts are becoming more common and being called “#sushitero,” or “#sushiterrorism,” online.
The trend has rattled investors. Shares in Sushiro’s owner, Food & Life Companies Co Ltd, fell 4.8% last Tuesday, as the video circulated.
The company is taking the incident seriously. In a statement last Wednesday, Food & Life Companies said it had filed a police report against the customer, alleging damages. The firm also said it had received an apology from him, and that it had instructed restaurant staff to provide specially disinfected utensils or condiment containers to any customers who felt uneasy.
Sushiro is not the only company dealing with the problem. Two other leading conveyor belt sushi chains, Kura Sushi and Hamazushi, told CNN that they had experienced similar disruptions.
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‘Sushi terrorism’ prank videos in Japan are hurting their famous conveyor belt restaurants
Sushi train restaurants have long been an iconic part of Japan’s food culture. Now, videos of people licking shared soy sauce bottles and messing with plates of food on conveyor belts are prompting critics to question their prospects in a Covid-conscious world.
Last week, a video taken at Sushiro, a popular sushi chain, went viral, showing a male customer licking his fingers and touching food as it came down the rotating belt. The man is also seen licking a condiment bottle and a cup that he places back onto a communal pile.
The prank has set off a deluge of criticism in Japan, where such acts are becoming more common and being called “#sushitero,” or “#sushiterrorism,” online.
The trend has rattled investors. Shares in Sushiro’s owner, Food & Life Companies Co Ltd, fell 4.8% last Tuesday, as the video circulated.
The company is taking the incident seriously. In a statement last Wednesday, Food & Life Companies said it had filed a police report against the customer, alleging damages. The firm also said it had received an apology from him, and that it had instructed restaurant staff to provide specially disinfected utensils or condiment containers to any customers who felt uneasy.
Sushiro is not the only company dealing with the problem. Two other leading conveyor belt sushi chains, Kura Sushi and Hamazushi, told CNN that they had experienced similar disruptions.
In recent weeks, Kura Sushi has also gone to police over another video of a customer who picked up food with his hands and put it back onto the conveyor belt for others to eat. The clip appeared to have been filmed four years ago, but only recently resurfaced, according to a spokesperson.
Last week, Hamazushi reported its own separate incident to police. The chain said it had spotted a video widely circulating on Twitter, which showed someone dropping wasabi onto sushi as it rolled past. This “deviates significantly from our company’s rules, and is unacceptable,” the firm said in a statement.
“I think these incidents of ‘sushi tero’ are happening because there are fewer staff in stores to keep an eye on customers,” Nobuo Yonekawa, a Tokyo-based sushi restaurant critic for over 20 years, told CNN. He added that restaurants had recently cut down on labor to cope with other rising costs.
Yonekawa noted that the timing of the pranks was especially sensitive, particularly as Japanese consumers continued to be more hygiene-conscious due to Covid-19.
Japan has a reputation for being one of the world’s cleanest places, where people wore face masks regularly even before the pandemic to prevent spreading of illnesses.
The country is currently experiencing a record wave of Covid-19 infections, with the number of daily cases peaking at just under 247,000 in early January, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK.
“In the time of Covid and in light of these incidents, conveyor belt sushi chains need to reevaluate their hygiene standards and food safety,” he said. “These chains will need to come out and present solutions to the customer to regain trust.”
Sensitive times
Businesses have good reason to be worried. Daiki Kobayashi, a Japan retailing analyst for Nomura, predicts the trend could weigh on sushi restaurants’ sales for as long as half a year.