Ajisen Ramen

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Ajisen Ramen
Native name
味千ラーメン
Industry Foodservice
Founded Japan
Products Ramen fast food
Website Ajisen Ramen Japan

Ajisen Ramen (Japanese: 味千ラーメン, Chinese: 味千拉面/味千拉麵) is a Japan-based chain of fast food restaurants selling Japanese ramen noodle soup dishes. The company's logo, featuring artwork of a little girl named Chii-chan, can be found on their stores and products. Ajisen Ramen has outlets in Japan, Australia, Canada, China, Guam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Cambodia and the United States.

History

  • 1968 – Pork bone white soup based Tonkotsu ramen from Kurume, Fukuoka was modified with garlic flavour by a Hakka person from Meinong, Taiwan in Kumamoto, Japan. He is the founder Takaharu Shigemitsu (Japanese: 重光孝治), or original name Liu Tan Hsiang (Chinese: 劉壇祥).
  • 1972 – Shigemitsu Industry Co., Ltd. was incorporated and a noodle and soup factory was established. Franchising was started by the company.
  • 1994 – The first oversea joint venture business was started at Taipei, Taiwan. It ended three years later without success.
  • 1996 – With the death of Takaharu Shigemitsu, his son Katsuaki Shigemitsu took over the business. Poon Wai (Chinese: 潘魏) opened the first store in Hong Kong under license of Ajisen Ramen.
  • 2007 – Ajisen Ramen (China) Ltd. was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Locations

Japan

  • Hokkaido
  • Tohoku - Aomori Prefecture
  • Kanto - Ibaraki Prefecture
  • Chubu - Shizuoka Prefecture, Nagano Prefecture, Nagoya, Gifu Prefecture
  • Kansai - Osaka Prefecture, Wakayama Prefecture
  • Chugoku-Shikoku - Hiroshima Prefecture, Kochi Prefecture, Ehime Prefecture
  • Kyushu - Fukuoka Prefecture, Saga Prefecture, Nagasaki Prefecture, Oita Prefecture, Miyazaki Prefecture
    • Kumamoto Prefecture - about 70 stores
  • Okinawa Prefecture

China

An Ajisen Ramen restaurant in Dragon Centre, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong.

Since its inception, Ajisen Ramen has made significant headway into the Chinese market, especially in the metropolis of Shanghai, where it has 132 locations. There are a total of 590 Ajisen restaurants in the China region as of August 2011.[1] Those expansion of stores were started by present CEO of Ajisen Ramen (China) Ltd. (SEHK0538), Poon Wai (潘慰) from Hong Kong in 1996.

The current president of the Hong Kong-listed Ajisen China Holdings is businesswoman Poon Wai. The company's executive directors were Poon Wai, her brother Jason Poon Ka Man (潘嘉聞), and Yin Yi Bing (尹一兵). Yan resigned on 18 July 2013.[2]

In 2011 the Chinese company was fined 200,000 yuan for misrepresenting the nutritional content of its soup.[3]

Hiring controversy

The company announced the appointment of Joseph Lau Si-sing (劉士盛) as chief operating officer on 18 July 2013.[2] Lau left the company "by mutual consent" in late September, five days after corporate gadfly[clarification needed] David Webb criticised his appointment. Webb pointed out that the company had failed to disclose that Lau, former managing director of McDonald's (Hong Kong), was convicted in April 2009 of bribery and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Later, Webb blogged that Lau did not graduate from Caltech as was claimed in the company's appointment announcement.[4][5] Lau's prison term expired just three days before Ajisen first announced his appointment. The company said the errors were "mainly caused by insufficient communication between Lau and the staff of our human resources department and translation error".[4]

See also

References

External links