The man who brought sushi to the masses by serving it up on a conveyor belt in fast-food-type restaurants, has died at the age of 87.
Yoshiaki Shiraishi was chairman of Genroku Sangyo Co. He died Wednesday of cirrhosis of the liver at a hospital in Osaka, the western Japanese city known for its food lovers.
A former sushi chef himself, Shiraishi opened his first revolving sushi bar, called ''kaiten zushi'' in Japanese, in 1958 in Osaka.
In the restaurants, customers sit around a bar like in a traditional sushi shop. But instead of ordering directly from the chef, they pick up their raw fish morsels off a conveyor belt. The aim was to keep labour costs down.
Revolving sushi restaurants have recently become a hit around the world. In big Japanese cities like Tokyo, customers will line up for hours to get into some popular ''kaiten zushi'' bars.
A sushi dinner in the fashionable Ginza district of Tokyo can cost up to $1000. In comparison, a meal at the average revolving sushi restaurant will set you back about $40.
The Genroku Sangyo company once owned some 250 conveyor belt sushi outlets around Japan. It currently has 11 directly-run shops in Japan and provides technical assistance to restaurants in the United States and Europe.
Shiraishi was a famous figure in hedonistic Osaka, a city known for having more outgoing and assertive people than its gigantic rival, Tokyo. Everyone there knew he was the inventor of conveyor belt sushi, the Higashi Osaka chamber of commerce said.
Japan now has some 5200 rotary sushi restaurants, according to an industry estimate.
Genroku Sangyo headquarters and their restaurants were closed yesterday for Shiraishi's funeral, organised by his son Hiroshi, who serves as company president.
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