Rotating conveyor belts, a once iconic staple of sushi chain restaurants in Japan, are rapidly sliding into history.
While the decline is not new, the popularity of the automated belts took a hit due to hygiene concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic and pranks by customers, Japanese news outlet Asahi Shimbun reported.
Choushimaru Co, which operates about 80 sushi outlets in the Tokyo metropolitan area, opened a renovated outlet in October 2023 without conveyor belts. Workers at the branch were told to add value by talking to customers and placing importance on serving customers with a human touch.
The conveyor belts were invented in 1958 to reduce labour costs at sushi restaurants and allow many customers to be served quickly, Asahi Shimbun said.
But food that sat on the belt for too long would lose their freshness, with restaurants having to bear the cost of disposing of the stale food, the news outlet added.
The issue was mitigated by allowing customers to order freshly prepared sushi that are delivered on a conveyor belt. This system, introduced by chains such as Hama-Sushi and Kappa Sushi, helped to reduce wastage.
The Covid-19 pandemic made customers more wary of germs spreading on exposed food, while a series of incidents in 2023, where pranksters recorded themselves licking utensils, soya sauce bottles, tea cups and even food on the conveyor belts, caused customers to shun restaurants with conveyor belts.
The restaurants had to take measures such as replacing the food items on the conveyor belt when they have new customers.
A representative for Choushimaru told Asahi Shimbun that the pranks were not the main reason behind its decision to stop using conveyor belts, adding that it was more to cater to changing trends among customers.
Another chain, Kura Sushi, which still serves dishes on a rotating conveyor belt, responded by installing an artificial intelligence camera system that can capture suspicious actions, such as when a plate is briefly taken from a conveyor belt and put back.
“In any case, we must keep the sushi rotating. That is our raison d’etre (‘reason for being’ in French),” the company said.
Others like industry giant Akindo Sushiro are replacing conveyor belts with touchscreen monitors at each table, which show animated images of its dishes on a conveyor belt.
Introduced at three of its outlets in October 2023, the 150cm by 50cm screens are dubbed Digiro – short for Digital SushiroVision.
Mr Koichi Mizutome, president of Food & Life Companies, Akindo Sushiro’s parent company, said the future of conveyor-belt sushi depends on customers’ choice between the go-round style and the order-based style.
“Trials have been carried out over the past one or two years, and I think things will come down to one of the two,” he added.
