Awata started out with a modest ambition of owning three restaurants, yet today Tokyo-listed Toridoll Holdings has a network of nearly 2,000 quick-service restaurants across 28 countries and regions covering 21 brands
It was a promise to himself that stores number one and two were only a matter of time and he would soon achieve his modest goal of owning three restaurants.
Four decades later, Awata’s Tokyo-listed Toridoll Holdings has a network of nearly 2,000 quick-service restaurants across 28 countries and regions covering 21 brands. The flagship is Marugame Seimen, Japan’s largest udon noodle chain by both revenue and store count. The entrepreneur’s fast-food success has made him a billionaire and honed his ambitions.
“I would like Toridoll to compete on a global scale,” says the 62-year-old president and CEO at his headquarters in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, adding that he’s aspiring to make it a ¥1 trillion ($7 billion) company by revenue in the next decade. To achieve those lofty targets, Awata wants to reduce Toridoll’s dependence on domestic diners in a shrinking home market and focus on overseas expansion.
The global quick-service restaurant industry grew at a compound annual growth rate of 5 percent between 2019 and 2023 to more than $1 trillion, the fastest-growing sector among the overall food-service market, Tommaso Nastasi, a Milan-based partner at consulting firm Deloitte, says by email. But in Japan, which is facing the challenges of a greying population, fewer full-time jobs and stagnant wages, restaurant operators must also grapple with rising costs and worker shortages.
Moreover, the country’s food business is intensely competitive, Awata notes. To grow domestically would mean snatching market share from rivals such as Hanamaru, the local udon chain owned by the more-than-century-old beef-bowl giant Yoshinoya Holdings, and Tokyo-listed Zensho Holdings, best-known for its affordable Sukiya beef-bowl chain, founded by fellow billionaire Kentaro Ogawa. Toridoll also has to contend with American juggernauts such as McDonald’s and KFC, which between them operate over 4,000 stores in Japan.
(This story appears in the 29 November, 2024 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)