Became a dollar billionaire thanks to beef rice bowls for only 70 thousand VND

Kentaro Ogawa (Japan), a new entrant to the world's billionaire ranks, built his $1 billion fortune thanks to beef rice bowls that cost just $3 (about 70,000 VND).

In 1982, Kentaro opened the first 24/7 Sukiya beef rice shop, aiming directly at the average customer. He specialized in providing full, hot portions of white rice and stir-fried beef with onions for only 3 USD (about 70,000 VND).

Up to now, after 35 years, he has developed this establishment into a restaurant chain with 1,970 establishments worldwide, mostly in Japan and scattered in many countries such as China, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Billionaire Kentaro Ogawa

The Sukiya chain is owned by Zensho Corporation, which has 4,800 restaurants worldwide, specializing in dishes such as udon noodles, burgers, and conveyor belt sushi.

New business thinking

Since 1982, when he opened his first Sukiya beef rice shop, Zensho has been passionate about making his product unique. He refuses to compare himself to his competitors because, in some sense, when compared, companies create similar products and services.

Kentaro said: “Japanese people tend to compare themselves with others. For me, only when customers acknowledge Zensho as unique, Kentaro Ogawa as an entrepreneur with a unique strategy that no one can imitate, then it has value. Uniqueness makes success.”

A beef rice bowl at Sukiya restaurant.

In parallel with expanding his restaurant chain, he also established 5 food processing companies, 27 factories, 25 distribution centers, 1 food quality inspection center and many farms.

“We cannot guarantee food safety if we let another company supply or handle any step,” he said. “Up to 80% of the ingredients we use are self-produced, the rest are imported from trusted partners.”

$1 billion fortune

Currently, Zensho earns $4.7 billion in profits each year, far surpassing McDonald's in terms of revenue.

With a global development strategy, Kentaro has expanded its business to other Asian countries such as China, Taiwan and Brazil... with more than 2,000 restaurants. This has helped the company's stock increase by 30% compared to previous years.

Kentaro is known to currently hold 40% of Zensho's shares, plus accumulated dividends, his total assets increased to more than 1 billion USD. Recently, he was honored by Forbes as one of the 50 richest billionaires in Japan, ranked 1,940th in the list of the richest billionaires in the world.

According to Dan Viet Newspaper