QSR Interview | By Blair Chancey
“Do you know the meaning behind our logo, the frog?” Douglas Foo asks quietly over the phone. The volume is up all the way, and his voice still isn’t much above a calm whisper. “The frog doesn’t walk, he hops,” says Foo, making an obvious reference to his own company’s explosive growth. It’s 10:30 p.m. where he is in Singapore during our phone interview, a 13-hour difference from the eastern U.S., and despite the late hour, Foo’s responses sound more like that of a sensei than a quick-serve executive.
But he is the latter—founder and CEO of Sakae Sushi, an international sushi quick-serve with 70 units across Asia, two in New York City, and plans for many more. The logo, it turns out, represents the company perfectly, not because of the importance of its Chinese characters, its lucky color, or its resemblance of a rice bowl. Instead, the logo’s design is the perfect example of the type of meticulous thought Foo puts into every business decision. Potential markets are put through rigorous research processes, suppliers are thoughtfully chosen based on a mix of green consciousness and bottom-line common sense, and even the number of chairs in the stores is down to an exact science.
While other quick-serve leaders scramble to secure capital and unload company-owned stores before the economic climate worsens, Foo is not worried, not yet extending franchising in the U.S., and not experiencing anything he hasn’t already weathered.
The brand was launched in 1997 in Singapore at the height of the Asian financial crisis. And now that he’s entered the U.S., at a time when expansion is seen as a fool’s errand, it seems a crumbling economy is the secret ingredient to Foo’s international success.
Through a series of e-mails and phone calls, QSR got to know Foo’s emerging brand. In this QSR Interview he opens up about the challenges of global sourcing, his stores’ cutting-edge technology, and where his frog will hop to next.
Where did the idea of Sakae Sushi originate? We realized people were beginning to become very health-conscious, and Japanese food is very healthy food. Our idea was never to open just one restaurant, but to make a brand that was synonymous with sushi or Japanese food. That’s how we picked the name Sakae because it sounds like sake, and sake and sushi go together in a lot of places. What we were looking at is the global market. So when people think Sakae, they think sushi; like when they think hamburgers, they think McDonald’s; when they think pizza, they think Pizza Hut; and when they think fried chicken, they think KFC.
Is it possible for a sushi concept to be as successful as traditional fast-food chains? McDonald’s was not loved by millions overnight. It took them years to get to where they are today. As it is, Asian food is fast gaining popularity over fast food because of health concerns. And this trend will gain strength. We believe strongly that one day Japanese food will be the preferred choice for meals and be as popular as, if not more popular than, other fast-food chains.
How are you able to serve sushi at fast-food prices? The reason why we were able to do that is because we’re working directly with the suppliers, the source. We try to always get our cost brought down, and we also have innovative ways to maximize raw materials.
But I don’t think we have a secret formula on how we were able to make sushi affordable to the masses or how we managed to grow the Sakae Sushi brand into a global brand. It was a matter of doing what we believe in—serving tasty Japanese fare with quality and fresh ingredients at reasonable prices.