Ramensasshi

Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter I. Why so many restaurants go out of business shortly after opening?

1. Very short average lifespan
2. No slowdown in the rate of restaurant closures
3. Running a Ramen shop has become a difficult business!
4. Various causes for increased early-stage closure rate for new restaurants
5. Do not imitate rivals. Never compete with rivals
6. Are you really passionate about your business?
Chapter II. The history and the essence of Ramen

1. Different fate of Chinese and Japanese varieties of Ramen on global stage
2. What is the essential difference between Chinese and Japanese varieties of Ramen?
3. What is the reason that only Japanese Ramen has succeeded in globalization?
4. History of Ramen evolution in Japan
5. Direction of future evolution of Ramen
Chapter III. The Fundamentals of Ramen soup

1. Components of Ramen soup
2. Why many existing Ramen shops struggle with soup making?
3. Ramen soup blending
Chapter IV. The essence of a successful Ramen restaurant

1. A Strategy to provide high value (high product strength)
2. Quality of taste and visual appeal
3. Number of seats has a big impact on sales and profits
4. Number of parking lots
About Yamato Ramen School
Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Preface
Why so many ramen shop owners are struggling with soup?
I, Rocky Fujii, was originally a mechanical engineer, graduating from Takamatsu

National College of Technology, and first worked at Kawasaki Heavy Industries,
Aircraft Design Department at a plant in Gifu prefecture.
For the first three years at Kawasaki Heavy Industries, I was in charge of aircraft design
and license production of the "Phantom" fighter jet, and for the next three years was
designing an engine room at the Sakaide Shipbuilding Division.
This was during those formative years in Gifu, when I was taught about the importance
of Design philosophy by my senior colleagues.
The meaning of Design philosophy is in grasping the essence of things, and thinking
deeply.
The experience I acquired during that time had a great influence on my future way of
life.
Since then, I developed a habit of trying to understand the essence of things I was
doing.
It was also the case with Ramen soup, when by always asking "what is the essence of
Ramen soup", I arrived at the idea of "digital cooking" – something that nobody in the
Ramen industry could think about before.
This was basically how I, being a mechanical design engineer, became enchanted with
Ramen, established a method of making tasty soup based on a “digital cooking”
approach, and started teaching this method, as well plating techniques and failure-proof
business practices, to students at three locations – our Head Office in Kagawa, Tokyo
branch, and a location in Singapore.
Though this story of my transition from a world of mechanical engineering into a realm
of –of all things! - cooking, might perhaps sound rather strange, but what’s true is true –

as befitting someone coming from a field of mechanical engineering I am very good at
drawing blueprints.
No matter how difficult, precise or complex a machine might be, just give me a drawing
board, and I can make a correct and accurate blueprint of it.
In the same way as machine designs are precise and punctual, not a smidgen of
ambiguity should have its place in a recipe for a dish.
Such a technical background made it only natural for me to think it was possible to
reproduce complicated tastes by creating accurate recipes through elimination of all
uncertainty and quantification of all parameters.
By quantifying it, and by creating its formula – the recipe becomes reproducible by
anyone.
To sum it up, for me making a Ramen recipe is akin to writing a precise machine
drawing.
At the same time, by delving into the nature of Ramen soup, I was able to devise a
number of concepts that no one could ever think of.
On the other hand, alongside with “digital cooking” approach, cooking curricula of our
Udon, Soba and Ramen schools advocate for not using any artificial additives or
chemical taste enhancers.
Together with devising a digital cooking approach, I was able to create a formula of
how to make a delicious, non-additive, natural soup.
It has to be said that health-consciousness ranks high among my values.
Therefore, the vegetables we offer in our company’s cafeteria are all organic, and we do
not use any chemical seasonings or preservatives for cooking.
I also make kimchi myself – all food is natural, additive-free and very delicious.

My personal motto is that food should give people nourishment and make them healthy,
and using preservatives or chemical seasonings is something that should be avoided.
Often, a food which is good for health is not delicious, but I think that those notions
should not be mutually exclusive.
As a result, I was also able to develop a fundamental formula of deliciousness itself.
I teach both aspiring and established Ramen shop owners that healthiness alone would
not be sufficient to ensure their success in this business – healthiness AND
deliciousness together is what makes a restaurant prosper.
Therefore, it is a matter of fact that a dish must be delicious – what’s more, in this era of
SNS a dish should also be visually attractive, and worth taking a photo of it to post on
Instagram or somewhere else on Internet.
I have always been very inquisitive, and through teaching students at our Ramen School
I was able to find a golden ratio of taste and determine its structure.
This golden ratio is based on a scientific analysis of taste, making it very

easy-to-understand, and is an omnipotent and universal technique that can be applied to
various tastes.
Of course, in the process, I read a tremendous number of books to understand and learn
about what taste was.
Though it also has to be added that through trials and errors of my work I still keep
learning from and through teaching at our School to students from all over the world
(about half of them are amateurs in this field, and the other half are established culinary
professionals or owners of existing Ramen shops).
As every month we continue teaching at our three Schools, there is a constant stream of
new discoveries.

And what I often realize through teaching is that a lot of students lack passion for the
quality of taste, and if they worked more seriously, they would have been able to create
more interesting flavors, and achieve better results.
Through every course of Ramen School, through books I read, and through visiting
many successful restaurants around the world, my interest in taste remains unchanged,
and I always keep challenging new horizons.
If you are an owner of an existing Ramen shop who is not satisfied with the taste of
your menu, or someone striving to thoroughly explore new vistas of taste, I recommend
you knock at the welcoming gates of our School, and do it ASAP!
At the same time, based on our experience of running a Ramen school for nearly 20
years, our company sells concentrated pork bone soup stock, clear chicken soup stock,
various originally developed sauces, and flavor oils, etc. made under supervision of our
company.
Below, I would like to demonstrate why the taste created by our company has such an
outstanding quality.

Chapter I
Why so many restaurants go out of business shortly after opening?
Let us first look at the reality of Ramen industry.
1. Very short average lifespan
Do you know what is the average lifespan of a newly opened Ramen restaurant?
Based on statistics for newly opened Ramen shops to shut down within 1 year (which is
42~43%), and that for a 3-year period (about 72~73%), our analysis shows that the
average lifespan of a Ramen restaurant is about 2.4 years.
One of the reasons why life expectancy is so short is simply because sales and profits
are not satisfactory. For it goes without saying that businesses would not fold that fast
had their sales and profits been good.
Fig. 1 Average life expectancy of a Ramen shop

Calculation method:
approximate curves are drawn based on closure rates for the 1st and the 3rd years since
opening, and then extended to cover corresponding rates for the 2nd and the remaining
years (5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 respectively). Dividing the area by the initial number of
restaurants gives an average lifespan of about 2.4 years.
2. No slowdown in the rate of restaurant closures
First of all, please look at the graph below.
Grap h 1 . Nu m b e r o f R egi s t er ed R am en S t o res (2 0 0 6 -2 0 1 5 )
An enormous decrease in the number of restaurants is obvious.
This phenomenon is not limited to Ramen shop businesses, but can be observed for
other types of food service businesses. The situation with restaurants specializing in
Udon and Soba is even more severe with a closure rate being 25% higher than for
Ramen restaurants.
In 10 years, the total number of restaurants dropped by about 16%, with 1.6% average
annual decrease rate.

3. Running a Ramen shop has become a difficult business!
Twenty or thirty years ago, it was said that Ramen shop was a kind of business anyone
could make money on. At that time, competition among various food service industries
was not severe, and the market size was constantly growing. However, with the rapid
evolution of information technologies, the competition principle for all businesses was
undermined in a way that it has become easy for anyone to pre-judge whether a
particular restaurant was a good one or not based on opinions on the Internet, even
without first visiting it themselves. Proliferation and growing influence of review sites
is a clear indicator of this trend – now anyone can see restaurants’ rankings based on
evaluations by other customers. This has increased stratification between restaurants
popular among customers and those which are not. In the past, even for a mediocre
restaurant it was possible to remain in business, but nowadays only restaurants of
superb quality can survive in such a competitive environment.
To use a comparison with sports, in the past for an athlete to become famous it was
enough to win at some local or regional competition, but nowadays one at least would
need to participate in Olympic Games to have people talk about them.
As a result, as the data compiled by TKC shows, Ramen restaurant business has become
very difficult to make profit on.
Table 1: Recent TKC earnings data for Ramen restaurants (for businesses with less than
50 million yen in annual sales)
Staff Amount Variable Fixed

Number % % % % Profit
count of sales expenses expenses
Number of
restaurants 229 100 5.8 29,801 92.98 10, 321 34.63 19,970 67.01 -490
surveyed
Profitable 62 27.07 5.4 32,052 100 10,223 31.90 20, 363 63.53 1,465
Unprofitable 167 72.93 5.9 28,966 90.37 10,358 35.76 19,824 68.44 -1,216

Table 2: Recent TKC earnings data for Ramen restaurants (for businesses with 50
million to less than 100 million yen in annual sales)
Number of
restaurants 146 100 13 70, 368 100.47 23,862 33.91 46,500 66.08 4
surveyed
Profitable 61 41.78 11.4 70,037 100 22,838 32.61 45,081 64.37 2,117
Unprofitable 85 58.22 14.1 70,605 100.81 24, 598 34.84 47,519 67.30 -1,511
Table 3: Recent TKC earnings data for ramen restaurants (for businesses with annual
sales of 100 million to 250 million yen)
Number of
twenty
restaurants 100 100 147,543 96.27 49,551 33.58 97, 281 65.93 711
four
surveyed
153,
Profitable 43 43.00 22.1 100 48,921 31.92 99, 998 65.25 4,333
253
143, -2,
Unprofitable 57 57.00 25.4 93.46 50,026 34.93 95, 231 66.49
236 021
The above TKC data clearly shows that the smaller the size of a restaurant, the less
profitable on average it would be; and, conversely – the bigger the scale, the more
chances for it to be profitable.
What can be glimpsed from this data is that within the Ramen food service industry,
more than half of businesses are in the red, and that the smaller the scale of a business
the higher the likelihood such a business would be unprofitable (as is the case with 73%
of all small-size Ramen shops). Likewise, we can also draw a conclusion that under
current oligopolistic tendencies, be it a café or any other type of food service business,
or any type of business at all, a bigger scale gives a company an advantage of higher
productivity, more abundant operational resources, and thus a higher chance of
surviving in business competition.

4. Various causes for increased early-stage closure rate for new restaurants
Three factors of paramount importance for would-be Ramen shop owners:
1) Mindset
2) Skills
3) Management
Factor 1. Mindset. Importance of the mental side.
Recently, when starting a new business, what many people tend to overlook is the
importance of the mental aspect.
It is this factor that I feel many Noodle School students lack these days, or even unable
to have a good command of in the first place.
Since business is a system, there are always inputs and outputs, and various elements
are connected along the way.
And there is always a time lag between the input and the output.
The human body is also a system. So, for example, if you drink some water now does it
mean you would want to go to a bathroom right away? Of course, no – that would
happen at least some time later. The business is exactly the same, and even if you
improve the product or customer service quality from today, the sales would not rise
immediately, but there always would be a time lag of several days, months, or even
years.
In short, as long as it is a system, there is always a lime lag between the input and output,
and the more complex the system is, the longer that time lag would be.
Therefore, what business people need to have is passion, patience, and a strong mental
power.
Regarding mental powers, my book “Restaurants, even in a Recession. Textbook of

achieving success in Ramen, Udon and Soba” touches upon it in the following way:

"Business result = responsibility × dream × passion × concentration × will power ×
experience × patience”
All of the above is about mindset, that is, a mental aspect, importance of which I think
is necessary to understand today.
Factor 2. Skills (technical).
Many newcomers into Ramen restaurant business start off with such things as looking
for a real estate for their locations, concerning themselves with interior and exterior of
their places, despite not having yet perfected their menus. So, they have a situation
when their restaurants are ready, but - what really matters – their products are not, being
of subpar quality not worthy of a top professional.
Before the advent of Internet that would not have been a problem, but with information
spreading fast, and people able to learn about things in a moment, such a model is no
longer viable.
Many early-stage failures of new Ramen shops can be attributed to the fact that their
owners did not fully ensure quality of their products before opening up, and ended up
receiving mediocre ratings (around 3 out of 5 points) from gourmet-site reviewers for
serving them food of mediocre quality. It should be noted that 3.3 points is a minimal
level for a new restaurant.
It should all start with a full and complete development of the product you plan to offer,
then you have to check financial viability of your business model through a thorough
calculation of money flow (earnings), and only then you should search for an
appropriate real estate.
Factor 3. The importance of management, and development of a profitable and viable

business model.
No matter how good your skills may be, if you are not good at management, your
restaurant will not prosper.

Take, for example, Hakata Ippudo which through 34 years of its history has managed to
become one of the world's leading restaurants, with around 150 locations in Japan and
100 abroad. And it was all owing to the management abilities of its founders.
Building a system that makes it possible for such a big number of domestic and
international locations stay profitable, requires a management of people, resources and
money.
Therefore, management is also an ability to handle all factors comprehensively.
In this way, multi-store expansion cannot be accomplished without raising profitability

of your business.
Reinvestment means investing in human resources, in product development, in

improvement of customer service quality, in property, etc., and unless there is a constant
reinvestment in people and means of production a business cannot remain being
successful.
Thus, effective business management requires constant reinvestment in all of the

above-mentioned components, as well as in such areas as information technologies –
both now and in the future.
Therefore, it can be said that it is the most important task for top management to create
a business model that keeps customers happy, spends a lot of money, and continues
bringing in the highest possible profits.
The recent increase in early-stage closure rates for startups can be due to business
owners not understanding the above 3 factors, or not making thorough preparations.
Profitable businesses do not fold up in such a short time – and those that do must have
issues with their profits and money-flow.
5. Do not imitate rivals. Never compete with rivals

(understanding the idea of the “Blue Ocean” in business)
Many startups fail because they try to imitate other businesses in the industry. The
following is a text posted on Hakata Ippudo website, and it can serve as a good
reference for many business people.

"History and Future of Hakata Ippudo
Hakata Ippudo opened up on October 16, 1985.

A small place with only 10 counter seats, Hakata “Ippudo” – “A Hall of Wind” –
brought a breath of fresh air into the Ramen world, overthrowing its conventional
thinking with every bowl of Tonkotsu Ramen with a vigor as befitting its bold name.
The shop owner Shigemi Kawahara has created a kind of mild-flavored pork bone
Ramen from which the smell of pork has been removed. The shop interior with
abundant use of wood resembled that of a woodworking sculptor's atelier, and was
thoroughly polished down to every corner.
The flowing BGM was modern jazz.

A warm and friendly service brought the restaurant to life – a restaurant where
everything was groundbreaking, and which also attracted support of female customers
for whom Ramen cuisine had thus far been something alien.
Ippudo became a real sensation in Hakata Ramen industry. "
As mentioned above, Ippudo did not imitate other Nagahama-style Ramen restaurants
like many startups at the time were doing, but created a completely different concept
achieving great success domestically and globally.

Fig. 2 Blue Ocean Strategy
You must not get involved with the red part at the center of the Figure 2 above.
You should concern yourself only with issues within the boundaries of the “Blue
Ocean”, which both encompasses needs of your customers on the one hand, and is
beyond abilities of your rivals on the other hand.
6. Are you really passionate about your business?
Although many new startups are passionate about money, only few people have a deep
passion for the noodle business.
The Figure 3 below explains a Visionary Company’s Hedgehog Concept.

IMPORTANT: only the red section where the three circles overlap should be the area of
your interest.
A concept of a Visionary Company was developed on the basis of comparison of 14

highly successful US companies with their unsuccessful counterparts from the same
industries.
Characteristics of a Visionary Company:

1. A company that focuses only on what it has a passion for
2. A company that focuses only on something it can become the best in the world at
3. A company that focuses only on something that can be a driver of economic growth
Fig. 3 Visionary Company’s Hedgehog Concept

Chapter II
The history and the essence of Ramen
There are celebrity Ramen aficionados, Ramen critics and Ramen researchers in
the world, and Ramen remains to be a very hot topic of discussion.
Nowadays, there is a lot of information about Ramen all over the world, and the amount
of that information is increasing day by day.
For the most part, that information is based on customer experience, and addresses
Ramen from a consumer point of view. I, however, would like to analyze it from a
slightly different perspective – the one of a Ramen School principal.
Every month at three locations (the Head Office in Kagawa, Tokyo Branch, and in
Singapore) I teach students how to survive in the Ramen industry.
In addition, for the past 40 years I have pursued the essence of Ramen from a
perspective of an engineer, and a founder of a noodle-making equipment company. This
is from this standpoint I would like to examine the following questions:
1. Why Chinese Lanzhou (蘭州) Ramen which boasts a history of four thousand
years could not gain a world-wide popularity, but Japanese Ramen with a history
of 100 years at most could become a global cuisine?
I am very interested not only in Ramen, but also in food in general, and if there is
anything I do not know, I have a habit of pursuing it thoroughly, and with enthusiasm.
One time I received a book on the history of Lanzhou Ramen from a friend of mine
from that region.
The book stated that based on the evidence from ancient ruins the existence of Lanzhou
Ramen could be traced back to 4 thousand years ago.
I was very interested in Lanzhou Ramen, so I took that friend's invitation to visit
Lanzhou in July 2012, and went to a school to learn how to cook Lanzhou
Ramen myself.
Having a population of around 3 million people Lanzhou has about 1 thousand Ramen
shops, where noodles are made and cooked by masters right in front of visitors using
traditional methods of manually stretching the dough multiple times, thinning it down,
and boiling it in cauldrons. Boiling time is extremely short – about 20 seconds, after
which ready noodles are put into beef soup, and served to customers.
The soup is basically made from a block of beef meat – it is cooked in the morning,
seasoned with salt, and then served throughout the day.
Among about 1000 Ramen shops in Lanzhou, the one with the biggest number of
customers had about 5000 visitors per day.
Modern day Lanzhou Ramen diligently preserves 4000 year old traditions of noodle-
and soup-making methods, and it differs very little from shop to shop.
2. What is the essential difference between Chinese and Japanese varieties of

Ramen?
Ramen was first brought to Japan from China after the Sino-Japanese War, and evolved
into many local varieties by incorporating distinctive characteristics of the respective
regions’ cuisines.
The most essential difference between Japanese and Chinese types of Ramen is that
Chinese ramen does not use Motodare.
Motodare (or “base sauce”) was originally developed from “Kaeshi” which is a sauce
for Soba buckwheat noodles. Motodare, made by dissolving and concentrating
“umami”-essence of various ingredients, helps to emphasize and strengthen the
monotonous taste of Ramen soup stock.
Seasoning of Lanzhou Ramen is done by adding either salt or a combination of salt and
other spices, while, on the other hand, Japanese Ramen has a wider choice of flavoring
agents – salt, soy sauce, miso, which allows to create more complex variations of taste.
Another difference it that seasoning for Chinese Ramen is done only once in the
morning for the whole volume of soup stock, which is then served throughout that day,

while each portion of Japanese Ramen is seasoned and flavored individually using
Motodare and flavor oils.
Therefore, a characteristic feature of Japanese Ramen is its strikingly vivid taste created
by a combination of Motodare sauce and soup stock.
Japanese Ramen is also a food where one can enjoy a change of its taste with time.
3. What is the reason that only Japanese Ramen has succeeded in globalization?
Among the most famous food items that have gained global popularity one would name
hamburgers and pizza. Japanese sushi has already become a global food as well.
Speaking of why sushi could achieve a status of global food, I think it was because
when sushi was brought to the US West Coast it evolved there into the “California roll”
variety.
Sushi would have never become a global food, if people rigorously insisted that only
hand-rolled and sea-weed wrapped types of it could be called “sushi”.
In the same way, it can be said that Ramen is already a global food too because, similar
to sushi, there is no strict definition of what can be called Ramen.
In a word, I think that it is easy for a food to become global if it is not constrained by
rigid conventions, but is open for innovation.
Among traditional Japanese noodles, I think that Udon and Soba have not yet become
global foods because they are bound by their respective traditions too much.

4. History of Ramen evolution in Japan
Ramen food culture spread across Japan after the World War II. In the beginning, it was
similar to Kake-style Udon, with a lot of hot soup first poured into a bowl, then boiled
noodles put it, and some toppings added on top.
Next, Tsukemen and Mazemen types of Ramen were created. Tsukemen had very little
soup, but was served with a thick sauce (similar to Zaru-Soba, Zaru-Udon or
Kamaage-Udon). Mazemen had almost or no soup at all, but was served mixed with a
thick sauce like Abura-Soba.

In this way, the world of Ramen cuisine is constantly evolving, with the soup
concentration getting higher, and the taste becoming stronger.
As described above, Ramen first emerged in Japan in a form similar to that of
traditional Chinese-style noodles – it had rather plain taste, and was served in a low
density soup, but with time it evolved into varieties with more strong flavor and denser
soup. In the beginning, the soup stock was made from pork, chicken and beef, then
seafood-base kinds of soup were introduced followed by vegetable-base for vegetarians,
and now there are even soups made from fruit.
5. Direction of future evolution of Ramen
For Ramen – it’s anything goes.

However, preserving the essence is, nevertheless, a matter of absolute significance.
Innovation is important, but adhering to principles is important too.

Disregarding the essential commitment to the quality of taste can lead to a situation
similar to the one happening now with sushi where there are many “sushi-like”
contraptions.
Below, I would like to present my thoughts on the direction of evolution that will drive
the development of Ramen food culture in the future:
1. Up until present, wheat was the main ingredient to make Ramen noodles, but recently,
given the growing popularity of gluten-free dietary approaches, rice and other grains
have come to be used, with beans and various other healthy food sources likely to
follow the suit.
2. In the beginning, Ramen soup stock was made from pork, chicken and beef bones,
but then the scope was broadened to include a variety of seafood, vegetables, and fruits.
In this regard, we can possibly expect new additions to the list in the future.
3. Until now, Motodare base sauce was mostly made from ingredients common to
Japanese cuisine, but in the future other ingredients from other culinary traditions may
be introduced as well. At our School we already routinely use Vietnamese fish sauce.

4. With regards to flavor oils we can expect introduction of other types of animal and
vegetable fats and oils, including olive, chia seed, or other types that have not been
traditionally used so far.
5. The same applies to toppings as well which, in addition to traditional types of char
siu, may in the future be made from a diverse range of protein sources using various
methods of preparation (i.e. low temperature cooking, smoking etc.) or used in a raw
form.
6. Plating techniques will, probably, significantly evolve too, giving us approaches and
techniques not yet seen in the past, some of them even looking unusual and extravagant.

Chapter III
The Fundamentals of Ramen soup
Soup is an indispensable part of noodle cuisine. Soba noodles are served with
Soba-Tsuyu, Udon noodles have Udon-Dashi, and Ramen has Ramen soup.
For noodles to be delicious, the soup element is crucially important. Within noodle
dishes there is a constant balancing between noodles and soup.
Neither element can be allowed to take prevalence over the other: if noodles are
over-emphasized the dish as a whole becomes unbalanced, and if soup has
overwhelmingly strong presence noodles would be hard to notice at all.
Take for example Udon and Soba. While Udon noodles have a rather moderate flavor,
when eating Soba dishes one enjoys the flavor of Soba noodles themselves, so a too
strong Tsuyu-sauce can cancel that flavor out.
It also depends on a particular type of the noodle dish. To make Tsuyu-sauce for
Mori-Soba or Zaru-Soba – where you enjoy the taste of noodles themselves – you
would use a heated variety of Kaeshi-sauce without much soy sauce flavor left (the so
called “Hon-Kaeshi”). On the other hand, for Kake-Soba dishes you would need to use
“Nama-Kaeshi” – a raw variety with a clearly pronounced soy sauce taste.
The most important factor for a noodle dish soup is how good it envelops (sticks to) the
noodles.
Generally speaking, soup varieties in Japanese cuisine have low density, so they don’t
attach onto noodles that much (like with Udon and Soba noodles).
The same applies to Ramen made according to Chinese traditions – its soup does not
stick to noodles as well.
But whether it is a soup for Udon, Soba or for Ramen noodles it has to have high
density and thoroughly attach onto noodles.

1) Components of Ramen soup
Ramen soup is comprised of the following 3 components:
1. Soup stock
The first component of Ramen soup is soup stock, which can be compared to
Shiro-Dashi (white-Dashi) for Udon or Soba noodles. It is made by extracting a flavor
of ingredients into water, so to speed the process up and make it more efficient, it is
advisable to use soft water, which also reduces ingredient waste and time needed for
cooking.
For seafood-base kinds of soup stock, because the flavor of their ingredients can be
extracted just by soaking, over-heating can lead to a discharge of unpleasant flavors as
well, which makes temperature control important.
Detailed information on methods of soup stock making can be found either in Yamato
Noodle school curriculum or textbooks, but there is one thing that is necessary to point
out here - dried sardines (niboshi) should not be boiled or crushed when making a soup
stock from them – doing so would extract the bitterness and other off-flavors contained
in their viscera.
Only digital cooking method that allows for precise temperature control can be used to
make a soup stock of high quality.
Soup stock serves as a foundation for the whole soup. The more saturated (thicker) the
stock is – the more flavorful and savory the soup would be, and more easily such a soup
would attach onto noodles due to its higher viscosity.
Therefore, to make a tasty soup it is absolutely crucial to use a densitometer to

constantly measure saturation of stock during cooking to check if it has reached the
required level. Not using a densitometer but relying only on cooking time can lead to
quality inconsistency from one batch of stock to another.
Density can be checked on a densitometer scale. Right after the war, during food
shortages, Ramen soup stock had a minimum density of 1, but nowadays it is at least 2,
and for soups of clear (Chintan) variety it can go as high as 4 or 5.
For Hakata-style pork Ramen or chicken Paitan-style Ramen varieties the minimum
density is 3-4, with the maximum reaching 12.
It would not be an overstatement to say that the history of Ramen evolution is a history
of Ramen soup becoming denser and denser.
In Kanto region of Japan, average density of Ramen has also greatly increased in the
past several decades.
The higher the density of soup, the less water content there is, and more savory and
viscous it is.
There are even varieties of soup where you could put a heavy 500-yen coin on its top,
and it won’t sink.
A good yardstick for the quality of soup stock is whether it tastes good without adding
either Motodare base sauce or flavor oils.
Without a tasty stock, a tasty soup is impossible.

Thus, it is a precondition for a tasty Ramen soup to check if the stock tastes good even
before adding Motodare or flavor oils.
No matter how good your Motodare or flavor oils may be, no tasty Ramen soup can be
made using a stock of inferior quality.
Another necessary condition for a good soup stock is controlling the quality of
ingredients. For animal-based soup stock freshness of ingredients is also a very
important factor. On certain occasions, if animal bones were left unprocessed for a long
time after slaughtering they may spoil, which would negatively affect the quality of
stock cooked from them.
This applies to poultry as well. Try to choose whole chickens or chicken carcasses that
are fresh, and have layers of fine fat.
It goes without saying that bad smelling ingredients should not be used for cooking
stock either.

2. Motodare base sauce
If soup stock serves as a basis for Ramen soup, Motodare is used to define the direction
of its taste.
There are different kinds of Motodare, made from such seasoning agents as salt, soy
sauce and miso as their base. Motodare is used for soup stock seasoning, and without it
soup stock is like a lens without a focus.
Generally speaking, Motodare is a condiment made by mixing various ingredients with
salt, soy sauce or miso, which is added to soup stock to define the direction of its taste.
Motodare is made from foods with high concentration of umami like kelp, clams,
shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, various species of fishes (including in a form of dried
flakes). Synergistic effect achieved by combining those ingredients with Motodare base
(like soy sauce) greatly enhances their umami-content.
At Yamato Ramen School, we measure Motodare down to 0.1 grams to create the most
exquisite and sublime taste combinations, for which we have found clear ratios and
developed definitive formulas. As if building pieces of precise machinery we commit
ourselves to a pursuit of uniquely delicious Ramen.
At our School, for brewed types of ingredients like soy sauce and miso, we use a
mixture of four different kinds of them to achieve the best gustatory balance through a
synergy effect from combining various types of yeast from different breweries.
3. Flavor oils
The role of flavor oils is to give Ramen its impact.
Similarly to Motodare, flavor oils are made by extracting flavors of various ingredients
into animal fat or vegetable oil base.
By using flavor oils, we add an oil film onto the surface of Ramen soup. This oil film
slows down cooling, and by sticking onto noodles when they are lifted up from the soup
it intensifies their taste making it more “Ramen-like”.
The use of flavor oils helps to balance out the overall taste of Ramen as a whole dish
enhancing the strength of its flavor and taste.
Based on the above, it can be said that having been transformed, innovated and
developed in Japan, Japanese Ramen is different from Chinese Ramen.
Just like Japanese sushi which, once brought to America, has evolved into California
rolls, not being bound by traditions Ramen cuisine saw the emergence of such varieties
as Tsukemen and Mazemen, and became a global food spreading all over the world.
Thus, for expansion of Japanese Ramen’s global outreach to continue, while preserving
its fundamental essence, it needs to be as unobstructed by conventions - of what IS
ramen and what is NOT - as possible, and to be free and open for a never-ending pursuit
of innovation.
2) Why many existing Ramen shops struggle with soup making?
In reality, even among people who actually run Ramen businesses there are not very
many who understand the essence of Ramen soup making described above.
About half of Yamato Ramen School students either run Ramen shops themselves, or
are professional chefs.
There are many reasons why established food service professionals are knocking at
doors of our School, but many of them find it difficult to make good-tasting soup.
Also, among our students there are those who despite having already achieved great
success are passionately striving for even higher perfection, and come to our School to
acquire skills in the field of digital cooking.
Enumerated below are the most common reasons why people find it hard to make
good-tasting soup:
1. People do not understand the correct proportions of ingredients and water.
Speaking from the fundamental principle of taste extraction, the more water is used the
easier it is for a flavor to dissolve there.
However, the more water is used the more difficult it is to achieve the desired density of
soup stock which takes a lot of time to boil down.
In this respect, the highest efficiency is achieved with a ratio of ingredients to water of 1
to 2.
Using such ratio, we can make a clear-color Chintan variety of Ramen soup stock
almost without adding any additional water in the process, while to make a thick Paitan
variety we keep the same water level until the density reaches 5~6, from where we boil
down to the final density of 8 or higher.
For more efficiency – to shorten cooking time and reduce the amount of ingredient loss
- we use only soft water. If tap water is used, when it evaporates, the minerals from the
water still remain in the soup.
2. People are not aware of proper cooking and storage methods.
A prerequisite for making a good quality soup stock – whether it is animal or

seafood-based – is to quickly cool it down with cold water after the cooking was
finished.
A soup stock left at the room temperature after cooking starts to spoil and eventually to
rot.
Additionally, many Ramen shops start cooking their soups early in the morning, but still
don’t have enough time to finish until opening up at around 11. The cooking is complete
at about 2-3 in the afternoon during low customer traffic hours, but the pot is left
simmering for the rest of the day which raises the density of stock above necessary in
the evening. In such case, the quality is not consistent throughout the day.
Moreover, at the end of the day they need to dispose of the leftovers, thus losing money
on food loss.
This is why at our School we teach that soup stock should be cooked on the previous
day, quickly cooled down, put into a fridge, and then used throughout the next day with
only a required amount for each portion heated as necessary. This allows us to
consistently maintain the same level of soup quality for each portion of Ramen, and to
reduce the amount of food loss because the soup can be kept in a fridge for 2-3 days.
3. People don’t know if it is OK to use pressure cookers to make Ramen soup stock.

With regards to pressure cookers, our clients have differing opinions, but considering
that in general cooking time in pressure cookers is very short, it may not be sufficiently
long enough to extract the necessary amount of umami-essence from ingredients.
Pressure cookers use narrow hoses to pump pressure, and are not efficient at
emulsification of liquid that is being cooked inside.
Insufficient emulsification may not be easy to discern just by looking, but it can make
the soup stock taste bland.
It depends on the density of stock, but in some cases emulsification can disappear after
subsequent re-heating (if you are interested, you can compare the taste before and after).
At our School, we also teach other ways how to achieve a consistent level of
emulsification – and some think that in current conditions of labor shortage using such
methods might even be unavoidable.
4. People do not know how to prevent pork bone stock from smelling bad.
There are many possible causes why a soup stock made from pork bones may smell bad.
One of them is that bones used for cooking were not fresh enough – in this case it might
be better to search for a different supplier. Another possible reason is that scum may not
have been removed thoroughly enough – with pork bones, it is necessary to keep scum
removing for about 50 minutes after the stock began to boil, otherwise it would have an
unpleasant smell.
When making soup stock some people add vegetables like cabbage to prevent it from
smelling bad, but an adverse side effect of this method is that after a long boiling time
the bitterness and scum from vegetables themselves can dissolve in the stock, negatively
affecting its color and taste.
That is why to remove all bad smell from soup stock made from pork bones, it is
necessary to keep removing the scum for about 50 minutes after the soup began to boil.
There is also a fat that floats up to the surface during boiling – if left unremoved this fat
too can make soup stock smell bad. Such fat should not be used to make flavor oils
either.
However, for certain varieties of Ramen soups, like for Hakata-style, the fat that floats
up to the surface should not be removed. That fat constitutes an essential part of the
taste, and should be left in a pot to mix with the rest of soup stock. Though, for other
specific types like “Yobimodoshi” fat oxidation can be an issue.
5. People don’t know how to prevent Chicken Paitan soup from having a bad
smell.
The same method of preventing soup from smelling bad applies to chicken-based
varieties of soup stock as well. Make sure not to re-use the fat collected from surface.
To make a chicken Paitan soup stock, bring it to a boil, and collect scum for 30 minutes
keeping the pot at high heat. Once the scum stopped appearing on the surface, lower the
heat, and wait for the density to rise up to level 2-3. Then you will see a thick layer of
fat collecting on the surface – this fat would need to be removed to prevent the soup
from smelling bad. Once the fat is removed, change to strong heat, and wait for the clear
Chintan color to turn into cloudy Paitan color.
6. People don’t know if pre-boiling pork bones is OK.
Some people pre-boil pork or chicken carcass bones before cooking, but this should
never be done.
Pre-boiling causes the ingredients to lose their essential taste, and make it difficult to
bring the density of stock to a required level. This especially applies to chicken
carcasses which give away their taste very easily. Some people do pre-boiling to remove
bad smell, but this also can be achieved through removing scum from the surface of
soup stock.
7. People don’t know correct methods of double-soup blending.
In the past, combining animal and seafood-base kinds of soup stock was a widespread
practice. However, when doing so, one should bear in mind that generally seafood-base
kinds of stock have lower density, and their use can dilute the soup, making it less
savory. It is especially the case when you want to make a soup with strong chicken or
pork taste.
There are other effective methods to preserve the animal flavor in a multi-base soup.
Such methods are also taught at our Ramen School.
8. People don’t know how to properly prepare chicken carcasses for cooking.
Compared to pork bones, chicken carcasses should be treated with more caution.
As a general rule, you should remove the viscera making sure it is done with as little
contact with water as possible, because excessive washing can flush out valuable taste
substance contained in the meat on bones and fat.
9. People don’t know how to make fish stock.
Fish stock originated from Tsuyu for Soba and Dashi for Udon noodles, but cooking
methods used to make them are different.
Udon Dashi originated from Kansai cuisine, it has a sweet taste, and is more popular
among women. It is made by soaking kelp, finely cut dried flakes of various fish
varieties, dried sardines, and then heating them. When heating, it is important not to
raise the temperature above 60 degrees C for kelp, and 80 degrees C for dried fish
flakes.
One of the most common mistakes people commit when making dashi is raising the
temperature too high – this extracts the off-flavor contained in ingredients into the
stock.
Conversely, Soba Tsuyu originated from Kanto. It is made mostly from thick bonito
flakes, does not use kelp, has a bitter taste, and is more liked by men.
Characteristics of different types of fish flakes can be outlined as follows:

Accordingly, depending on whether the target taste is closer to Udon Dashi or Soba
Tsuyu, appropriate ingredients and methods of cooking would differ.
Nowadays, many restaurants use a lot of dried sardines, but their use will also depend
on whether it would be necessary to preserve sardines’ sweetness or extract their
bitterness into the stock as well. If only the sweetness is needed, sardines should be
soaked in water, and then heated but not above 60 degrees C. The same principle applies
to a variety of other fish flakes as well – if sourness and bitterness are needed, then they
can be boiled, otherwise the temperature should not be brought above 80 degrees C.
10. People don’t know how to make Motodare base sauce.
Truth to be told, even among students of our School there were those who were making
Motodare by mixing soy sauce with artificial taste enhancers.
As was stated in the previous chapter, Motodare is used to season the stock, and define
the direction of its taste. Motodare is made by dissolving umami content of various food
ingredients into a seasoning base.
In this regard, it must be noted that although there are both heated and raw types of soy
sauce, even among people who make Ramen many are familiar only with the heated
variety.
In comparison to the raw type (which has a distinct and clearly defined taste of soy
sauce) the heated type contains relatively little soy sauce flavor. Combining these two
types of soy sauce can allow for greater versatility to create tastes of more complex
structure.
Kaeshi sauce for Soba noodles, which Motodare for Ramen has originated from, has
three varieties:
1) Hon-Kaeshi (heated)
2) Nama-Kaeshi (raw)
3) and a type which is combination of the two
Hon-Kaeshi has no distinct soy sauce taste, and is used for Zaru and Mori varieties of
Soba noodles. On the other hand, Nama-Kaeshi is used for Kake-Soba.

11. People do not understand how to make flavor oils.
Flavor oil stays on top of soup, and gives an impact to the whole Ramen dish. Among
our students there were real chefs who were making flavor oils from the fat which they
removed from soup stock during cooking. But the fat collected from stock contains
impurities which can be a source of unpleasant smell. Using such fat to make flavor oils
can spoil the taste of Ramen, and thus should never be done.
Flavor oils contain the taste of ingredients they are made from (like seafood or
vegetables), and should be selected accordingly to suit the general concept of that
particular Ramen dish. Nowadays, a great variety of oils and fats has come to be used,
while ingredients are chosen not only for their taste but also to give Ramen soup their
characteristic colors (like powdered paprika or green tea), or as spices.
3) Ramen soup blending
Once making of stock, Motodare sauce and flavor oils is done, it remains to blend them
into a soup.
No matter how good the taste of stock may be, or however unique your Motodare is, or
whatever wonderful qualities your flavor oils may have, if you mix them in a wrong
way, you would not be able to make a decent soup from them.
Yamato-style blending method is a key element to make a good quality soup from the
base components.
During my 17-year long carrier of running Yamato Ramen School I have developed a
sure-proof way to create superb soups without relying on using artificial ingredients.
By teaching students 2 or sometimes even 3 times a month at our Ramen School, I have
discovered the following principles of soup making:
1. No use of artificial ingredients
At our School we strictly adhere to a rule of not using any artificial ingredients and
chemical taste enhancers. Through our research we were able to develop a way to make
delicious soup without relying on such additives – a specially brewed vinegar we named
“Kami no Shizuku” (“Divine Dew”). Adding about 2 grams of it per 300 grams of soup
allows you to improve taste qualities of soup in a natural way.
Recently, many students of our School say they do not want to use artificially-made
ingredients, and through our constant commitment to natural cooking, - which has
become a standard at our School, - we are positive that we accommodate their wish to
stay natural.
On the other hand, there are people who think they need to use artificial ingredients, and
such people can be divided into three following categories:
1) those who want to serve their customers tasty soup, but save on ingredients
2) those who do not know how to make tasty soup without using artificial ingredients
3) those who think tasty soup cannot be made without use of artificial ingredients
The biggest issue with artificial seasonings is that they conceal the real amount of salt in
soup by making it feel less salty than it really is – so, after eating such a soup people
become extremely thirsty, and drink a lot of water. Therefore, using artificial ingredients
cannot be considered health-friendly.
2. Motodare sauce blending
At our School we have established that the best combination of ingredients for soy
sauce and salt-based Motodare is that of clam, scallop and shrimp. We usually use
Motodare made from these ingredients for Shio Ramen, Shoyu Ramen and Miso Ramen
as it is an easy and efficient way to balance out their taste. Many our students try to do
something complicated by using a great variety of Motodare sauces only to end up with
an unbalanced soup.
3. A golden ratio of taste
At our School we have established recipes for every possible variety of noodles from
traditional Chuka-Soba with light and relatively unsaturated type of soup, to Tonkotsu,
Chicken “Paitan”, saturated fish-based varieties as well as Miso, spicy Miso, and 100%
organic ones. Whatever type of Ramen students may want to make – we are confident
we would be able to help them.
We have also recently introduced an electronic taste sensor which allows us to precisely
determine even slightest differences in various taste patterns, and we use it to continue
our research into the world of human taste.
Whether you have not yet studied in our School or want to perfect your skills and
knowledge even further, you are welcome to visit us to learn about the latest
developments in technology.

Chapter IV
The essence of a successful Ramen restaurant
Among new Ramen shop startups around 43% go out of business within the first year
after opening, and around 73% within the first three years, with the overall number of
Ramen restaurants decreasing by 1.6% every year.
From such a data we can conclude that there is a great deal of competition in which
some Ramen shops thrive and survive, while others fail and close. And even among the
remaining ones – out of 1000 restaurants 16 meet their demise each year.
Additionally, if a substantial number of restaurants that open each year is taken into
account, the annual number of restaurants going out of business is staggering (1.6%
decrease rate means 300-400 disappear from the market each year). This decrease rate is
no less astonishing even if one considers the decline in total population of Japan which
has dwindled by a couple of percent since reaching its peak.
To sum it up, Japanese market has entered a phase when surviving has become a
difficult task for companies in any industry, and a poem by a Buddhist monk Ryokan
serves as a good description for it:
“Some cherry blossoms are falling

and the remaining blossoms are going to fall,
too”
No business is eternal, and is destined to disappear someday, but it is a task of its

owners to work hard to delay such an end for as longer as possible.
And although it has already been stated on these pages, I would allow myself to
reiterate it yet again that in order to prolong a lifespan of a business it is absolutely
necessary to raise its productivity and profitability.
Every month I interact with many students from all over the world through my teaching
at the Ramen School, and what I can conclude from this interaction is that to survive
any business in any country no matter which industry it belongs to must remain

future-oriented, and make sure it has enough robustness to constantly re-invest in people,
infrastructure and technology.
A strategy to increase sales and boost profits
This booklet is well past its half, so let us review other important topics.
To hire good personnel your restaurant must meet these fundamental requirements:
it must be profitable; and its customers must even be willing to wait in a queue to enter.
Next, let us go through the next 4 important points to increase sales and boost profits
1. A Strategy to provide high value (high product strength)
There is a “Ramen Jiro” location right near our Tokyo branch office, and it always has a
long queue of eager customers in front of it.
So why are those people ready to spend up to 1 hour of their time just for waiting to
visit a popular restaurant?
The answer is simple.
It is because those restaurants offer products of unique taste and quality, or portions are
voluminous.
There are many new trendy restaurants in Japan like “Ore no Itarian” (“My Italian”),
“Ore no Furenchi” (“My French”) which are very popular, and you can add another one
to this list – “Ikinari Sute-ki” (“A steak right off the bat”), and the thing they have in
common is that the ratio of ingredient cost in their sales is around 60%.
In this regard, one can also mention “Sushiro” - a sure leader among conveyor-belt
sushi restaurants, which has this figure at about 50%, while for food service industry in
general it stands at around 40%.
But when one takes a look at struggling restaurants specializing in Udon, Soba or
Ramen – the ratio of ingredient cost in their sales is around 30%. Such a situation is a
vestige from an era of 30 – 40 years ago, when that was enough for those restaurants to
stay in business and prosper. Hence it is possible to infer that the most efficient way to
raise customer satisfaction and sales would be to increase the ratio of ingredient cost.
Even an increase by 10% would raise the quality of dishes on the menu, allow to make
portions bigger thus contributing to higher customer satisfaction.
If you ask a restaurant owner if they would pay their own money for the food in their
restaurants, many of them would answer negatively. Also, many of them mistakenly
think that if they increase the cost of ingredients it would negatively affect their profits.
But profits depend on the number of customers. By spending more money on their
products businesses can increase their appeal to customers, and, as a general rule, start
being profitable only once they go beyond a break-even point – and the further they go
beyond it the bigger their profits become. Therefore, to gain high profits a business
needs to have many customers; and the calculus works backwards too, i.e. few
customers mean low profits.
This especially becomes obvious during business model reviews conducted on
management lectures at our Noodle School.
And the further you go beyond the break-even point, the greater the benefits are.
Therefore, in order to have large profits, it is essential to acquire many customers.
If the number of customers is not enough, it is impossible to earn sufficient profits.
Students of our Noodle School can easily comprehend this during business model
check-ups conducted in parts of our curriculum dedicated to
management.
2. Quality of taste and visual appeal
For a food served at a restaurant being tasty is something that goes without saying.
What’s more, an emergence of gourmet-review sites exposed food service businesses to
easily done comparisons with their rivals across the country.
From my own experience I can say that restaurants with a score of 3.5 or more are very
unlikely to fail.

For graduates of our Noodle Schools who thoroughly undertake all necessary steps of
preparation before opening their restaurants, getting a score of 3.5 is not that difficult.
Aside from its taste, another important point for a dish is how visually attractive it is,
this has become especially the case since the advent of SNS platforms where customers
share with other people online photos of the food they ate. That even made it
unnecessary for businesses to advertise themselves.
Sometimes, due to initial chaos and low level of preparedness, restaurants may serve
low quality food on early stages right after opening which is then graded low by
reviewers. For such restaurants to recover their reputation might turn out rather difficult
to achieve.
Therefore, you should abstain from advertising with flyers or similar means before and
during opening your restaurant, as well as not to make efforts to attract a lot of
customers at the time when your staff members have not yet grown accustomed to their
jobs.
3. Number of seats has a big impact on sales and profits
Recently, most of the students who come to our Noodle School have plans to open
small-size restaurants with about 10-20 seats, and when I ask them why do they want to
open such small places, more and more of them reply that they do not want to hire
personnel. What’s more, when I ask them about what kind of customers they want to
attract, with a straight face they reply that it would be people coming with their families.
Although in Japan labor shortage has been an urgent issue for a while, a more important
one is whether you would be able to make your place appealing for customers to come
there.
Operation of a food service business is impossible without customers visiting it.
If we suppose that the labor shortage issue would be getting even more serious in the
future, how can we expect to attract outstanding personnel to such small restaurants?
Because such people, by virtue of being outstanding, naturally tend to think about their
own futures too – like, whether they would be able to build their happiness in your
company in 5 or 10 years ahead.
If a pay is the same, they would, of course, want to be in a more promising company.
That is why to secure excellent workforce it is important for your restaurant to be large.
No truly capable person would want to work in a restaurant where they – alone or with a
colleague - would need to be constantly interacting with an owner. This is extremely
obvious on examples of “Ippudo” and other Ramen restaurants which succeeded in
global expansion. By analyzing business models of those restaurants which had been
successful in attracting outstanding personnel and multi-store expansion I came to a
conclusion that to achieve that a business would need to have at least 10 000 000 yen in
monthly sales. But to have sales on that scale a restaurant needs to have at least 40 seats.
4. Number of parking lots
Almost all locations suitable for opening a restaurant in Japan are in places where
customers would need to come by car. And yet again and again people think of opening
restaurants with insufficient number of parking lots or no parking space at all.
For restaurants in such disadvantageous locations to succeed they would need to have a
score of at least 4.0 on restaurant review sites, which is extremely difficult to achieve,
and which is a score only a top 0.1% of all restaurants can boast of.
For restaurants far away from city centers, no matter how many seats might be available
there at a given time, if they have no parking customers won’t be able to enter at all.
Therefore, for restaurants in suburban areas parking is an extremely important issue.
Our customers can order a survey of their locations to calculate an appropriate number
of parking lots for their restaurants.

Thank you very much for reading this booklet.
If you want to learn more about Ramen cuisine, to deepen your knowledge on and
master your skills for all things Ramen from noodles to soup stock, from Motodate to
flavor oils, from toppings to plating techniques, to learning how to open and run a
successful Ramen business, consider joining our Ramen School either in Japan or in
Singapore – an unforgettable and rewarding intensive course taught by the best Japanese
masters. We are here to help you create ramen and/or ramen restaurant that will beat the
competition!
Yamato Ramen School

(conducted every month in Singapore, Tokyo/Japan, and Kagawa/Japan)
Curriculum outline:
- Theory and practice of Ramen noodle making

- Soup stock, Motodare, Flavor Oils

- Toppings, Soup blending
- Dish plating

- Management Training
- Graduation Certificates
You can find more information here:

https://bit.ly/2OONxy2
You can get an application form from there:

https://bit.ly/2OR2Ard
I hope you’d enjoyed reading this. Thank you very much.
Please feel free to contact us for any questions.

contact@yamatomfg.com

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Table of Contents

Chapter I. Why so many restaurants go out of business shortly after opening?

Chapter II. The history and the essence of Ramen

Chapter III. The Fundamentals of Ramen soup

Chapter IV. The essence of a successful Ramen restaurant

About Yamato Ramen School

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Why so many ramen shop owners are struggling with soup?

I, Rocky Fujii, was originally a mechanical engineer, graduating from Takamatsu

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

It has to be said that health-consciousness ranks high among my values.

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

As a result, I was also able to develop a fundamental formula of deliciousness itself.

This golden ratio is based on a scientific analysis of taste, making it very

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Why so many restaurants go out of business shortly after opening?

Let us first look at the reality of Ramen industry.

1. Very short average lifespan

Fig. 1 Average life expectancy of a Ramen shop

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

2. No slowdown in the rate of restaurant closures

First of all, please look at the graph below.

Grap h 1 . Nu m b e r o f R egi s t er ed R am en S t o res (2 0 0 6 -2 0 1 5 )

An enormous decrease in the number of restaurants is obvious.

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Staff Amount Variable Fixed

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Three factors of paramount importance for would-be Ramen shop owners:

Factor 1. Mindset. Importance of the mental side.

Regarding mental powers, my book “Restaurants, even in a Recession. Textbook of

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Factor 2. Skills (technical).

Factor 3. The importance of management, and development of a profitable and viable

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Therefore, management is also an ability to handle all factors comprehensively.

In this way, multi-store expansion cannot be accomplished without raising profitability

Reinvestment means investing in human resources, in product development, in

Thus, effective business management requires constant reinvestment in all of the

5. Do not imitate rivals. Never compete with rivals

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Hakata Ippudo opened up on October 16, 1985.

The flowing BGM was modern jazz.

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

6. Are you really passionate about your business?

The Figure 3 below explains a Visionary Company’s Hedgehog Concept.

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

A concept of a Visionary Company was developed on the basis of comparison of 14

Characteristics of a Visionary Company:

Fig. 3 Visionary Company’s Hedgehog Concept

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

The history and the essence of Ramen

2. What is the essential difference between Chinese and Japanese varieties of

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2019 by YAMATO MFG. All Rights Reserved

5. Direction of future evolution of Ramen

For Ramen – it’s anything goes.