More and more conveyor belt sushi restaurant chains are moving away from the traditional practice of serving sushi on a rotating conveyor belt. Instead, they are introducing touch screens that display images of sushi dishes on a virtual conveyor belt. This change is aimed at preventing nuisance behavior by customers and reducing food waste.
Leading the industry is Akindo Sushiro Co., which has introduced a digital conveyor belt sushi display system called “Digital Sushiro Vision,” or Digiro. At each table in their restaurants, there is a large touch screen that shows videos of the flow of sushi. Customers can place orders by touching the screen, which also displays recommended items.
Since its introduction in September last year, this system has been well received at some Sushiro restaurants. The company plans to expand it to 19 nationwide stores by the end of this month.
The decision to move away from traditional conveyor belts was prompted by an incident in 2023 when a video went viral showing a customer licking the mouth of a soy sauce bottle at a Sushiro outlet. To prevent such behavior, Sushiro stopped using conveyor belts altogether and switched to touch panel ordering systems. However, they realized that having sushi move along the belt added liveliness to the dining experience, leading them to introduce Digiro.
Other sushi chains have also abandoned conveyor belts due to changing consumer attitudes and concerns about food waste. Hamazushi Co., under Zensho Holdings Co., has replaced conveyors with linear high-speed tracks for delivering ordered items to tables. This change is expected to reduce food waste by about 1,000 tons per year.
Kura Sushi Inc., on the other hand, plans to keep using conveyor belts while introducing order lanes in all its restaurants. By analyzing customer trends with artificial intelligence, they have reduced waste to about 3%. The company believes there is still demand for experiencing traditional conveyor-belt sushi among foreign visitors and installed a long conveyor belt at its flagship store in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
Conveyor-belt sushi critic Nobuo Yonekawa acknowledges that non-conveyor-belt restaurants may become more common in the future due to efficiency reasons but emphasizes that making it fun for customers is crucial for retaining their interest.
