Chain Restaurants’ Use of Chinese Vegetables Exposed by Name — Some Refuse to Comment

From our other sites

The story

Daily Shincho surveyed major restaurant chains about their use of Chinese-grown vegetables and published the responses with company names attached. Gyoza no Ohsho said everything was domestic except for Chinese bamboo shoots, while Ringer Hut said all its vegetables — even the pickles — were domestic, but Kourakuen and Osaka Ohsho reportedly never gave a specific answer. On 5ch, reactions to footage of cabbage being trampled underfoot and used as an ashtray mixed with suspicion toward the chains that refused to answer, alongside pushback that “being domestic doesn’t automatically mean safe.” Opinion split over which chains can actually be trusted.

“They trampled cabbage in their shoes, then dropped cigarette butts on it…” — The restaurant chains using high-risk “Chinese vegetables,” named and exposed! Some companies stonewalled reporters entirely

Published 9/29 (Tue) 5:58 AM

Daily Shincho

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

What people said

6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 09:36
Anything not domestic is basically at a level you shouldn't be eating anyway.
Disgusting.

Always check the country of origin.
169AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:36
Re: #6
Mr. Chef~ 🧑‍🍳 (baby talk for "コックさん," i.e. "Mr. Chef")
15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 09:39
Feels like Japanese-grown produce is more dangerous than Chinese these days.
65AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:00
Re: #15
Even when it ships under a Japanese company name, the people actually working the farms are foreign trainees being paid below minimum wage.
88AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:13
Re: #15
TV loves hyping up "Grown in ○○" as a brand and everyone gets excited, but mislabeling the place of origin happens all the time.
153AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:34
Re: #15
So where's the stuff you eat grown, then?
18AnonymousSep 29, 2026 09:41
Publishing an article like this right when the long rains have wrecked the domestic vegetable harvest… classic incompetent Shincho.
207AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:46
Re: #18
The long rains only hit eastern Japan.
33AnonymousSep 29, 2026 09:47
Gyoza no Ohsho going all-domestic on vegetables does have some merit. Though it's probably cancelled out by all that greasy oil lol
68AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:02
Re: #33
But Gyoza no Ohsho has been raising prices so much that customers are leaving and business seems to be suffering. Set meals are over 1,000 yen now, so it doesn't feel like a bargain anymore.
44AnonymousSep 29, 2026 09:51
Most restaurant chains use Chinese ingredients. There's no way you could eat that cheap otherwise. Seriously, get it through your head that cheap stuff has a reason for being cheap, and drop the deflation mindset already.
101AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:18
Re: #44
Convenience store bento too.
56AnonymousSep 29, 2026 09:57
69AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:03
🤮🤮🤮

108AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:22
The full list
116AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:25
Guess "no response" works fine then…
134AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:29
Re: #116
Osaka Ohsho
Kourakuen
Yudetaro
Komoro Soba

Guess they're piled so high with Chinese produce they can't even answer lol
145AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:33
Re: #116
You can really see each company's attitude here.

The ones just saying "we don't use it" with no other comment probably have something to hide, but there are companies covering up even worse stuff, which makes these ones look decent by comparison.
238AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:55
Re: #116
Gyoza no Ohsho
Hidakaya
Hanamaru Udon
Those are the only three you can trust.

Marugame and Fuji Soba are borderline okay.
The other four are out of the question.
164AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:35
Saizeriya… (short for the budget Italian chain Saizeriya)
215AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:48
Re: #1
So Kourakuen is guilty, huh.

"Among chains offering Chinese food and ramen on their menus, a refusal-to-answer stance stood out at several companies.

Kourakuen, headquartered in Fukushima Prefecture — known for Kitakata ramen — and running 358 stores mainly across eastern Japan, kept saying 'I'll pass it on to the person in charge' but never actually answered.

In contrast to Osaka Ohsho, which used polite language but effectively refused to answer, Gyoza no Ohsho said all of its main ingredients were 'entirely domestic' except for Chinese bamboo shoots. Ringer Hut, famous for Nagasaki champon, went so far as to use all-domestic vegetables even in its pickles and side dishes."
218AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:49
Re: #214
Something like this lol


241AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:56
China right now, with unemployment through the roof lol


248AnonymousSep 29, 2026 10:57
Stuff like this is seriously bad
272AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:03
The worst-looking ones are probably Kourakuen and Komoro Soba.
Then Osaka Ohsho and Yudetaro after that.


279AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:05
Re: #272
I'm out in the countryside, so the nearest Kourakuen is a 40-minute drive.
I've never actually been to any of them.
280AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:05
Re: #261
For commercial winemaking, grape-treading is usually done by heavyset, muscular middle-aged guys, you know.


Background and Key Points of Debate

This story originated from a hygiene scandal: footage that spread on social media showing workers in some Chinese vegetable-growing regions trampling cabbage underfoot and dropping cigarette butts on it. In response, Daily Shincho directly asked major restaurant chains whether they use Chinese-grown vegetables, then published the results by name, listing which companies answered and which stayed silent. The thread split along two lines: the view that “the companies refusing to answer are the most suspicious,” and the counterargument that “domestic doesn’t necessarily mean safe.” The latter shows up in comments pointing out that even domestic farms often rely on foreign technical-intern labor paid low wages, and that mislabeling the place of origin is far from rare. One point readers can easily misread: the article isn’t accusing the companies that said they “do use” Chinese vegetables of wrongdoing — it’s simply laying out each company’s stance toward the inquiry (all-domestic, partly domestic, no response, or refusal). Even so, some commenters treated the list as a straightforward “danger ranking.”

*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread ““They trampled cabbage in their shoes, then dropped cigarette butts on it…” — The restaurant chains using high-risk “Chinese vegetables,” named and exposed! Some companies stonewalled reporters entirely.”

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *