Photo/Illutration Yoshinoya is popular with its beef bowls. (Kazumi Tako)

A managing director at beef bowl restaurant chain Yoshinoya Co. was fired for saying the company’s marketing strategy for young women from the countryside was like “making innocent virgins” dependent on stimulant drugs.

Yoshinoya Holdings Co. said April 19 that Masaaki Ito has also been dismissed from his position as executive officer at the parent company of the fast food chain.

Ito came under fire after he gave a speech at the “Comprehensive marketing seminar for the digital age” held at Waseda University in Tokyo on April 16.

According to online reports, Ito implied that young women from rural areas do not know fine dining, so the company tries to get them hooked on beef bowls as soon as they enter urban centers.

The strategy is “to make young women who just came from the countryside and still don’t know what to do addicted to beef bowls while they are still innocent virgins,” he said.

The PR division of Yoshinoya Holdings confirmed that reports about this remark were accurate.

“It is true that (Ito) made a comment to that effect,” the division said.

The company said Ito’s words were “extremely inappropriate for someone in his position and are absolutely unacceptable from the viewpoint of human rights and gender issues.”

Yoshinoya Holdings said it could not confirm another comment that Ito allegedly made at the seminar.

It was reported online that he said, “(Young women) stop eating (beef bowls) once they get men to buy them expensive meals.”

The PR division said, “We don’t know details (about this comment).”

Ito was once a vice president of U.S. consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble Co.

He joined Yoshinoya as a strategy adviser in 2018 and became managing director later that year.

A well-known marketing expert, Ito has held online seminars on the subject and directed the marketing business at Yoshinoya.

He issued a written apology to the university on April 17.

Waseda University also apologized in a statement released on April 18.

“Part of the speaker’s comments was inappropriate because it can be equated to sexual discrimination and infringement of human rights,” the statement said. “We sincerely apologize as an organizer of the seminar.”

The university said it has no plans to hire Ito as a speaker for future seminars.

Yoshinoya also canceled an event on April 19 to mark the start of sales of “oyakodon” (a rice bowl dish topped with egg and chicken) that it had spent around 10 years developing.

The new item is the company’s attempt to make its meals more attractive after it raised prices of beef bowls and other dishes last year in response to higher costs for ingredients.

“We have decided to refrain from holding the event considering what has occurred,” a company official said.

Still, Yoshinoya started serving oyakodon on April 19 as scheduled at its restaurants across Japan.

(This article was written by Yuji Yamashita, Etsuko Akuzawa and Kazumi Tako.)

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