Ichiwa has been selling grilled rice flour cakes to travelers in Kyoto, Japan, for a thousand years.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
This Japanese Shop Is 1,020 Years Old. It Knows a Bit About Surviving Crises.
A mochi seller in Kyoto, and many of Japan’s other centuries-old businesses, have endured by putting tradition and stability over profit and growth.
By Ben Dooley and Hisako Ueno
- Published Dec. 2, 2020Updated Dec. 3, 2020
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KYOTO, Japan — Naomi Hasegawa’s family sells toasted mochi out of a small, cedar-timbered shop next to a rambling old shrine in Kyoto. The family started the business to provide refreshments to weary travelers coming from across Japan to pray for pandemic relief — in the year 1000.
Now, more than a millennium later, a new disease has devastated the economy in the ancient capital, as its once reliable stream of tourists has evaporated. But Ms. Hasegawa is not concerned about her enterprise’s finances.
Like many businesses in Japan, her family’s shop, Ichiwa, takes the long view — albeit longer than most. By putting tradition and stability over profit and growth, Ichiwa has weathered wars, plagues, natural disasters, and the rise and fall of empires. Through it all, its rice flour cakes have remained the same.
Naomi Hasegawa is the operator of Ichiwa. Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Such enterprises may be less dynamic than those in other countries. But their resilience offers lessons for businesses in places like the United States, where the coronavirus has forced tens of thousands into bankruptcy.
“If you look at the economics textbooks, enterprises are supposed to be maximizing profits, scaling up their size, market share and growth rate. But these companies’ operating principles are completely different,” said Kenji Matsuoka, a professor emeritus of business at Ryukoku University in Kyoto.
“Their No. 1 priority is carrying on,” he added. “Each generation is like a runner in a relay race. What’s important is passing the baton.”
Japan is an old-business superpower. The country is home to more than 33,000 with at least 100 years of history — over 40 percent of the world’s total, according to a study by the Tokyo-based Research Institute of Centennial Management. Over 3,100 have been running for at least two centuries. Around 140 have existed for more than 500 years. And at least 19 claim to have been continuously operating since the first millennium.
Kyoto, seen from a park near Ichiwa. More than 33,000 businesses in Japan have been open for a century or more. Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
(Some of the oldest companies, including Ichiwa, cannot definitively trace their history back to their founding, but their timelines are accepted by the government, scholars and — in Ichiwa’s case — the competing mochi shop across the street.)
The businesses, known as “shinise,” are a source of both pride and fascination. Regional governments promote their products. Business management books explain the secrets of their success. And entire travel guides are devoted to them.
Most of these old businesses are, like Ichiwa, small, family-run enterprises that deal in traditional goods and services. But some are among Japan’s most famous companies, including Nintendo, which got its start making playing cards 131 years ago, and the soy sauce brand Kikkoman, which has been around since 1917.
To survive for a millennium, Ms. Hasegawa said, a business cannot just chase profits. It has to have a higher purpose. In the case of Ichiwa, that was a religious calling: serving the shrine’s pilgrims.
Ichiwa began as a way of serving pilgrims to a nearby shrine.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Those kinds of core values, known as “kakun,” or family precepts, have guided many companies’ business decisions through the generations. They look after their employees, support the community and strive to make a product that inspires pride.
For Ichiwa, that means doing one thing and doing it well — a very Japanese approach to business.
The company has declined many opportunities to expand, including, most recently, a request from Uber Eats to start online delivery. Mochi remains the only item on the menu, and if you want something to drink, you are politely offered the choice of roasted green tea.
The mochi are made by hand and rolled in soybean powder.Credit...Hiroko Masuike
