Yoshinoya Holdings Co., a major "gyudon" (beef-on-rice dish) chain, plans to double its U.S. restaurants to about 200 and triple its China outlets to 1,200, President Yasutaka Kawamura said.
The company aims to hit its China target — which would give the country roughly the same number of branches as it has in Japan — in three years, and its U.S. target "at an early date."
To reduce its reliance on the domestic market for revenue, Yoshinoya plans to open more stores in Indonesia, he said.
Overseas sales account for only 6 percent of overall sales.
"It will get us nowhere unless we reverse (the ratios) in 10 years," he said, expressing hope that beef bowls can ride the Japanese food boom. "If our business had been limited to Japan, there wouldn't have been much room for growth and we wouldn't have been able to survive," he said.