The sushi specialists
Walking into Noto Catering's kitchens and factory in London's Clerkenwell, the first thing you see is four sushi chefs busying themselves deftly slicing delicate morsels of raw fish to top the day's sushi.
But there is a good chance that the chef labouring over a hunk of tuna is a board member, and the man labelling lunch boxes ready for dispatch is the managing director.
Noto is clearly no Anglo-Saxon catering service. Japanese-owned, its work practices mirror those found in Japan. As Noto's "gaijin" (non-Japanese) general manager Ben Tilouche puts it: "Here, everybody is expected to ‘get in the soup', as the Japanese are fond of saying."
Sushi, a dish of fish, rice, vinegar, seaweed and soy sauce, and sashimi, which is made from raw fish and often served with spices, make up the bulk of Noto's sales.
A few months ago, the company closed a deal to supply sandwich outlet operator Pràt à Manger with 1,500 sushi lunch boxes - called bento boxes - a day. This is in addition to the sushi bars it operates at both Harrods and Selfridges, and the canteen it operates at Japanese banker Yamaichi.
For functions and meetings, Noto's customers can order anything from a £10 bento box for lunch to a banquet covering a 60ft table, complete with kimono-clad hostesses and Japanese drums.
Noto was set up eight years ago as a subsidiary of the Japanese food processing company Shai, and has since cashed in on the increasing demand for Japanese cuisine, particularly for sushi. It now employs 80 full-time staff and makes an annual turnover exceeding £3m, mainly specialising in the production of sushi for special events, as well as bentos.
Sourcing the raw materials can be difficult, and result in high costs for the company. Japanese fish were banned from sale in Europe more than four months ago because Japanese fish processors do not meet European Union (EU) health and hygiene legislation, but this does not present a problem for Noto. "We import [fish] ourselves from Tunisia, from Sri Lanka - wherever the best supplies come from," Tilouche says.
"It is important to maintain the quality, which means going out there quite often to ensure the suppliers keeps up the standards we demand. We have two suppliers in Tunisia for bluefin tuna, which is the best place in the world to find it. But it's seasonal too, so we have to follow the tuna around the world as it migrates."
On the cost side, zero-rate taxes on fish sold by Tunisia to the EU, and the proximity of the country's waters, mean Noto can import its fish more cheaply than if it were operating in Japan. But quality control of the raw fish supplies is a problem. A Noto director, Hajime Nojiri, says that "good or bad, the price is the same".
Noto sources other ingredients more cheaply than its Japanese counterparts. The company uses 250kg of rice a day in sushi preparation, but it buys Japanese strains grown in Spain, out of the reach of the powerful Japanese rice lobby, at about a quarter of the cost of the same rice produced in Japan.
Some ingredients, such as vinegar for the sushi, come direct from Japan. The strong yen and high transport costs also pose problems but Noto buys in bulk through its parent company to keep prices down.
Being part of a large Japanese company helps with expenses such as specialised packaging. The plastic casing for bento boxes, for example, has microscopic holes to stop the food steaming up. Noto believes it would be nearly impossible to locate and import this casing without help from Japan.
The traditionally high cost of Japanese kitchen labour means the company cannot skimp on its chefs' earnings. The company employs nine chefs and, at around £36,000 per year for a qualified sushi chef, Japanese expertise does not come cheap.
"Although there are fewer raw ingredients and there is less preparation involved, Noto's costs: wages ratio is high compared with Western-style catering," argues Tilouche.
A sushi chef has seven years of training and is seen in Japan as a being highly skilled craftsman. Noto's costs could be kept down if it trained UK chefs, but so far it has not got around to organising it.
Tilouche, a Tunisian by birth, joined Noto to set up the fish-buying link from Tunisia. Now, as general manager, he would like to make some European changes at Noto because, he says, Japanese methods do have their drawbacks. "The Japanese have their own style of doing business, which I would describe as conservative," he says. "To be bigger, Noto has to think more European. Decision-making tends to be slow and more risks need to be taken. The way Noto operates now means we can't cope with demand."
But being part of a Japanese company also has its benefits. He adds: "A Japanese company such as ours is always at an advantage because the Japanese prefer to do business with Japanese. This gives us the edge over native competitors."
Seventy per cent of the company's clients are Japanese but Tilouche would like to encourage more English customers.
Japanese business practices have shown the world that, demanding though they are, the results often pay off.
"We differ from UK counterparts because we are more flexible," says Tilouche. "If a company wants something at the last minute, we try to supply it. If other catering companies get an order for lunch at 10am, they won't do it. Here, we do it.
"The customer always comes first in Japan. It's the same at Noto," says Tilouche. "As far as dedication is concerned, the management expects commitment from everybody."
