Today’s guest is Masamichi Toyama from Soup Stock Tokyo, a well-known chain of soup kitchens across Tokyo. He is known for being a keen businessman as well as an artist (he took charge of the art direction for his stores) and will soon be opening his 30th store, branching out into Shizuoka-ken.
Reported by Jon.
Toyama-san told us that he came up with the business plan for Soup Stock whilst working as a salaryman for Mitsubishi. Art had always been a hobby for him and even whilst working for Mitsubishi, he managed to create and sell various artworks that he created in his spare time. He would often dream about the day he would be able to have a job that would combine his skill as a businessman with his talent as an artist. For that, he felt, he would need to go into business for himself.
Toyama-san notes that around this time in his life he would often see women drinking soup and after dismissing other ideas, he settled on soup as the mainstay of his new business idea.
Whilst still working as a salaryman for Mitsubishi, he made a presentation to Mitsubishi itself, asking for investment help for his new business idea. His pitch had an interesting angle - the presentation took the form of a “story”. The management was impressed and a new subsidiary company, “Smiles” - was created. In the first year, Toyama-san developed 40 varieties of soup and opened one experimental store. Unfortunately after building a further 3 larger stores, they went into debt as there were simply not enough customers.
Using this as a learning experience, the company opened a small shop in Ebisu, Tokyo with a view to going back to basics - creating high quality products.
They thought long and hard about where else to put the stores and focused on their strengths - high quality ingredients, but a product that come in a “fast food” style manner.
In the 2 years following, they managed to hire a good range of staff willing to challenge themselves in this new and colourful business, filled with the same passion for creation as the owner of the company.
Toyama tells us that every member of the company recieves a special binder for their documents and notes, which had the appearance of a picture book. At the front of the book the staff can find the mottos of the company.
Toyama-san says that what Smiles stands for is best explained through the 5 phrases that make up the company motto.
We will strive for: Low Prices, High Quality
We must be: Sincere in what we do
We must keep our: Identity
We want: Admiration!
These 5 phrases were created by the company itself and because of this the staff themselves live by the words.
Toyama-san makes the point that the company works very hard, which has it’s ups and downs. However when working too hard, it’s possible to really mess things up, so there is a balance that you need to be aware of as a member of staff in a fast-paced business.
Question Corner:
Today I had your 980-yen set. It was pretty good. Sort of the place I’d go once a week. 980-yen isn’t cheap but I liked the atmosphere of the store - the trays were made of wood and the design was interesting. What kind of customer experience do you want your customers to have?
Toyama: Well actually, soup is surprisingly expensive to make! Concerning design, we wanted to make the design of the stores accessible to men as well as women. I like to think that the target ages of our customers is from 0 to 100!
In addition, soup is a colourful food so we purposely made the interiors of the stores as black and white as possible, to give a nice contrast to the product.
Toyama (continued): The idea was to give an idea of the quality of the food from the way the interior looks - I call this “design you can trust”.
How long did it take to complete the business plan? Was it difficult?
Toyama: It took about 3 months and it was a very tense time. As I already said my approach for the business plan took the form of a “story” with photographs - during the writing of this story I was filled with the desire to get the store off the ground!
Toyama-san tells us that he likes to think of the business using a “play” as a metaphor. For example, the play’s stage is the shop etc. For this reason he makes all new staff perform in a play at the opening ceremony! What a way to begin a new job…
In about 10 years time he would also like to make a movie about the story of the company. A finger in every pie eh, Toyama-san? Perhaps you should talk to Little More?
There is currently a Soup Stock store on the web and sales are looking good, but food ordering services tend to fluctuate wildly with the seasons - so for example during Christmas they sell much more than in the middle of the year. Finally, Toyama-san says that the company is planning to branch out into various other goods.
I’m looking forward to seeing what else you have in store for us, Toyama-san. Thanks for visiting PingMag.
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