The incredible story behind the invention of conveyor belt sushi
“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Unless he doesn’t like sushi, then you also have to teach him to cook.”
Anyone who has visited a YO Sushi! restaurant will have experienced the marvel that is kaiten sushi.
The literal translation means ‘rotation’ sushi and refers to the way the dishes move along a conveyor belt.
The man responsible for this invention, Yoshiaki Shiraishi, developed the idea to overcome a problem he had as the owner of a busy sushi restaurant.
Like many people working in the industry, he found it hard to find the right staff and employee turnover was high.
Although managing people was difficult, he also found it hard to do all the work on his own.
He was caught between a rock and a hard place.
One day, after a visit to an Asahi beer bottling factory, an idea popped into his head.
He wondered if a similar conveyor belt system used to move the bottles could be adapted to solve his problem.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as that, and several issues plagued his early designs.
Firstly, Shiraishi-san considered natural materials for the belt but soon realised that frequent washing would rot them, so he settled on stainless steel.
Secondly, he had to determine the correct speed to move the plates.
Too fast, and they would fly off the side. Too slow, and hungry customers would get impatient.
Then, he had to work out how to get the belt to go around corners.
Fortunately, that’s when Shiraishi-san experienced another moment of inspiration: observing a card game.
Watching players fan their cards out in a semi-circle, he realised that if he shaped the metal belt segments like playing cards, they would fan around the corners smoothly.
After five years of design and development, the Japanese restaurateur opened his first conveyor-belt sushi establishment, Mawaru Genroku Sushi, in 1958.
The concept was a roaring success, and Shiraishi-san went on to open 250 restaurants across Japan.
It wasn’t long afterwards that his brilliant idea spread internationally, bringing the delights of sushi to a global audience.
