Yoshinoya D&C Co. said Wednesday it expects to post a consolidated net loss of 1.88 billion yen in its 2004 business year, a reversal of its earlier forecast of 3.16 billion yen in net profit.
Yoshinoya, which stopped serving its trademark "gyudon" beef-on-rice dishes in February after its stocks of beef ran out, added that it will likely post a group pretax loss of 900 million yen in the fiscal year ending next February.
It had originally forecast a profit of 4.17 billion yen.
Sales are expected to hit 122.30 billion yen, down 5.2 percent from the previous estimate released in April.
On a parent-only basis, Yoshinoya expects to register a pretax loss of 1.37 billion yen, compared with the earlier projected profit of 3.70 billion yen. It forecasts a net loss of 3.08 billion yen, against the original projected profit of 1.75 billion yen, on sales of 67.40 billion yen, down 8.9 percent from the prior estimate.
The company stopped selling gyudon in the wake of Japan's ban on U.S. beef imports, imposed after the discovery of mad cow disease in the United States last December.
Yoshinoya and other major gyudon chains in Japan were relying almost entirely on U.S. beef.