Mitsushi Mukumoto, Director, Representative Executive Officer, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Gourmet Kineya Co., Ltd.

From Kineya to the world. What lies beyond overcoming difficulties?

Atsushi Mukumoto, Director, Representative Executive Officer, President and CEO, Gourmet Kineya Co., Ltd.

■ Profile
In June 2021, he was appointed President and CEO of Gourmet Kineya Co., Ltd. (current position). Subsequently, in January 2022, he became President and CEO of Gourmet Kineya Restaurant Co., Ltd., and is currently Chairman and CEO (current position).

Starting as a udon noodle shop, Gourmet Kineya now operates a wide range of businesses including in-flight meals, wholesale, and frozen foods. Behind this remarkable growth lies the skill of President Mitsushi Mukumoto, who brilliantly rebuilt the company's struggling performance. In this interview, we asked him about the story behind his restaurant business turnaround and his future prospects as he expands his market share into Southeast Asia.

During my university years, I belonged to the ski club at Kinki University. I had been skiing as a competitor since high school, but in university, everything changed, and I served as a manager for four years. Before joining the ski club, I thought that a manager's job was to help the athletes and support them by structuring training sessions. However, in reality, my main job was managing the club's finances. While managing a large sum of money—175 million yen per year—I learned about the adult world that athletes don't see, such as how depositing money into a bank's fixed deposit account can earn you tens of thousands of yen in interest.

■I learned during my university days that organizations can be changed.

Back then, strict hierarchical relationships were commonplace in sports clubs, and even minor acts of violence were considered part of the training process and weren't even treated as scandals. However, at a general meeting at Kinki University, this trend was abolished, and excessive guidance from upperclassmen to underclassmen was prohibited. This initiative was extremely unusual at the time and quickly spread to schools nationwide. As a result, underclassmen with Olympic-level abilities began to aspire to attend Kinki University, and we were able to win the overall championship at the Intercollegiate Championships. From this experience, I realized that organizations don't change immediately, but by making gradual changes, it's possible to bring about significant changes in a few years.

■ The position of president was given amidst the company's deficit.

Since joining the current Kineya, I have worked in various sales areas, including financial management, training and education, and system and store development. In 2008, the Lehman Shock occurred, and Kineya incurred its first-ever deficit. Two years later, I became president. This was because the number of customers visiting the stores had been gradually declining since the Osaka Flower Expo held in 1990, and the management at the time was only addressing short-term issues rather than identifying the root cause, so the deficit was not surprising. My role at the time was to figure out how to overcome this situation.

■ A change in mindset at each store

Kineya opened its first store in 1971, and at the time, its strategy of locating stores in prime locations generated significant sales. However, this was a result of the high economic growth period, and they did not make any efforts to encourage customers to return to their stores. Furthermore, after the bubble burst, as the number of customers gradually declined, they did not change their methods at all, causing them to fall behind competitors who adopted strategies such as introducing self-service systems modeled after udon restaurants in Kagawa Prefecture and drastically reducing the price of a bowl of udon. Despite operating at a loss, Kineya did not make any efforts to innovate like other companies. To change this situation, I cut expenses in other departments and increased investment in education. Specifically, I enhanced training for store managers to think of ways to encourage customers to return. At one store, which had many families as customers, the store manager made efforts such as borrowing picture books from a nearby library and lending them out, and providing coloring books. On the other hand, in stores located within Aeon Malls that saw low customer traffic on weekday evenings, they revitalized their stores with unconventional methods, such as incorporating performances by jazz band members who worked part-time at the store. When these innovations were reported to each other at store manager meetings, each store was inspired, leading to further changes in their operating styles. By creating this added value, Kineya managed to escape its deficit and achieve another leap forward.

■ Gourmet Kineya will continue to evolve

Kineya will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year, and its business has expanded beyond the restaurant sector to include a wide range of ventures through M&A, such as in-flight meals, wholesale markets, and frozen foods. Initially, these business developments were carried out by assisting acquired companies, but now we are considering how to build a portfolio of these businesses. In fact, in March of this year, we resolved to establish a joint venture with Kobe Bussan to acquire shares in the Asia Pacific operations of LSG Group, a leading global in-flight meal provider. In addition to its restaurant business, Kineya intends to focus more on this Asia Pacific-based in-flight meal business.
Furthermore, Kineya continues to evolve in other areas as well. One example is the addition of recruitment slots for the next fiscal year. In addition to our existing recruitment, we plan to hire additional individuals who have the potential to become management candidates. These individuals will gain experience in either our restaurant or in-flight catering business during their first year, and from their second year onward, they will take on roles in overseas operations as part of the LSG Group. In addition, to address the upcoming labor shortage, we started a Japanese language school in 2022. Here, we aim to recruit people mainly from Southeast Asia and cultivate talent that can thrive on a global scale. This is not limited to the framework of being an employee of Kineya, but aims to enable them to succeed in all fields, including other companies, overseas, and in their home countries, and we will continue to work hard to achieve this, including the necessary legal frameworks.

■Message to students

When I was a student, all I thought about was how to slack off. But in today's world, what matters is what skills you acquire and to what extent during your time at school. The hiring system will also change from a fixed starting salary to one where the starting salary varies depending on the skills you acquired during your student years. That's why you should continue studying even after graduation, and you should even consider going back to university. It may take time, but what you learn will eventually come back to you, so I hope you will keep this in mind and do your best.

Student Newspaper Online, May 27, 2026 Interview with Kyohei Nakazawa, 3rd year student at Waseda University / Aoi Morikawa, 2nd year student at Hosei University

Risa Ukita (3rd year, Tokyo Woman's Christian University) / Reina Inomoto (1st year, Kyoto University of the Arts) / Aoi Morikawa (2nd year, Hosei University) / Chiharu Yamada (2nd year, Information Management Innovation Professional University) / Kyohei Nakazawa (3rd year, Waseda University)