Costco Connection - April 2012

Celebrating No. 600 and more

Left to right, Jeff Brotman, Costco’s chairman of the board; retired president and CEO Jim Sinegal; Governor Toshizo Ido of Hyogo Prefecture; and Craig Jelenik, current Costco CEO, break a sake barrel in Kobe, Japan, to mark the opening of Costco’s 600th location.

SATOSHI TOKURA / AIM

A TRADITIONAL CEREMONY known as kagami-biraki marked the opening of Costco’s 600th warehouse in Kobe, Japan’s sixth largest city. Three Costco executives along with Toshizo Ido, governor of the Hyogo Prefecture, were on hand to break the lid of the sake barrel (kagami). The round lid symbolizes good fortune, and biraki means “to open.” Thus kagami-biraki represents an opening to harmony and good fortune.

Good fortune was certainly the case as 7,000 members came to shop on opening day, February Costco Japan carries about 35 percent imported merchandise, mostly from the U.S.

Downy fabric softener is a big seller as are all
fresh bakery items. “One of our bakeries sells
as much in a day as 10 warehouses in the U.S.,”
claims Ken Theriault, country manager. When
asked why, he responds, “Quality and value.”
Even though Ken and his team knew
that Kobe would be a landmark opening for
the company, their focus was mostly on the
details of opening the building, their fifth in
a seven-month period. “Kobe is going to be a
great building for us,” Ken says. Plus, Kobe is
a sister city with Seattle and the hometown of
Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners.

Another meaningful landmark for Costco’s Japanese division was the reopening of the Tamasakai warehouse in West Tokyo, the location most badly damaged during the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The warehouse reopened February 24 to 10,000 happy members, some of whom had lined up for four hours before the doors opened at 7: 15 a.m. “Members were thrilled to get back, as were employees,” Ken says, explaining that Tamasakai’s 460 employees had worked in other locations, many with long commutes, during the nearly one-year rebuilding period.

Certainly a cause for celebration, and maybe a sip of sake.—Anita Thompson

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