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Japan’s school lunch program, which continued in the same
vein for many years. The impact of this program on the eating
habits of Japanese children and their families was profound. 24
Despite the evident impact of the school lunch programme on the food
preferences of the post-war generations of Japanese, it was by no means
responsible for the popularization of American cuisine. Hamburgers,
French fries, milk shakes and doughnuts began to permeate the daily diet
of the Japanese population during the 1970s via a different route.
McDonald’s was introduced in Japan in 1971 by Fujita Den
(1926–2004), then a University of Tokyo student. He started with five
restaurants and the early years were tough, the year 1973 ending with a net
loss. By 1984, however, McDonald’s ranked first in the total sales of
Japan’s restaurant industry. Twenty years after the opening of the first
outlet, the number of McDonald’s reached 860 and more than quadrupled
in the following decade. The ambitious plan of ‘10,000 outlets by 2010’
announced around the turn of the new millennium is not likely to materialize,
but the company remains the largest fast-food chain in Japan today,
with nearly 4,000 restaurants operating throughout the country. 25 As
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney explains, the American identity of McDonald’s
contributed to its popularity in Japan:
A McDonald’s outlet in Japan, 2006.
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