By TOMOHIKO KANEKO/ Staff Writer
March 2, 2023 at 16:42 JST
OSAKA--A major conveyor-belt sushi chain announced on March 2 that it has developed an artificial intelligence camera system to detect suspicious behavior among customers toward the plates passing by them.
Kura Sushi Inc., a company operating the Kura Sushi chain, demonstrated the new system to the media at its Dotonbori restaurant in Osaka and other locations.
The system can detect unusual behavior such as customers briefly taking a plate from a conveyor belt before returning it.
Kura Sushi is responding to videos that went viral on social media showing customers behaving badly at its restaurants and other conveyor belt sushi chains’ outlets.
The chain had already installed AI cameras above conveyor belts at all its restaurants by 2021. The cameras capture images at tables to count how many plates are taken from the conveyor belts at each table.
A video went viral on social media at the end of January showing diners at a Kura Sushi restaurant briefly taking a plate from a conveyor belt and then returning it.
After this incident, the company enhanced the functions of its AI cameras.
If the new system detects any covers placed on sushi plates being suspiciously opened and closed, an alert will ring at the company’s headquarters in Saitama and Osaka prefectures, both manned by six or seven officers at all times.
The monitors at the headquarters will show numbers indicating the restaurant, the table and the plate in question.
The company officers at the headquarters will determine what has occurred through the new system as well as images captured by other cameras at the restaurant concerned.
They will then call the head of the restaurant.
Staff members at the restaurant will immediately remove the plate in question from the conveyor belt, then speak to the customers at the table concerned.
Sushi chains such as Kura Sushi have been plagued by videos going viral of customers licking a bottle of soy sauce or a teacup or putting wasabi on sushi on plates that were still traveling around on the conveyor belts.
The chains have been forced to respond to such behavior by limiting the use of conveyor belts to orders or removing bottles of soy sauce or teacups from tables.
Pranks by problematic customers are now regarded as a social problem as videos of such antics at Chinese and ramen restaurant chains, not just sushi chains, are going viral on social media.
Such videos include ones that were taken years ago but were recently “uncovered” by netizens after the incidents at the sushi chains.
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Kura Sushi Inc. demonstrates how a monitor shows information about suspicious behavior under its new AI camera system in Osaka on March 2. (Yuki Shibata)
