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The story
Hotland Holdings, which operates the takoyaki chain “Tsukiji Gindaco,” has fallen into the red, posting a net loss of 360 million yen for the third quarter of its fiscal year ending December 2026. Revenue actually grew year-on-year to over 40.8 billion yen, but soaring octopus prices and heavy investment in new ventures ate into profits, forcing the company to slash its full-year net profit forecast from an 800-million-yen gain to a 1.2-billion-yen loss. On 5ch, the thread sprawled from questions about whether Gindaco’s taste and cooking method are even any good, all the way to broader debates about inflation and stagnant wages.
Hotland Holdings, operator of the takoyaki chain “Tsukiji Gindaco,” has fallen into the red.
In earnings released on November 13 for the third quarter of its fiscal year ending December 2026, the company reported revenue of 40.856 billion yen and operating profit of 1.214 billion yen. Net profit swung from a gain of 266 million yen in the same period last year to a loss of 360 million yen. The company also cut its full-year net profit forecast from an 800-million-yen profit to a 1.2-billion-yen loss.
So why are profits shrinking even as revenue grows? The culprits are rising octopus prices squeezing margins and aggressive investment in new business ventures.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
I heard a Gindaco opened at the outlet mall in the next town over, so I drove an hour to try it.
Wasn't good — all you taste is oil. That's not "grilled," that's "deep-fried." Never going back.
The akashiyaki at the food court was terrible too. Akashiyaki should only be eaten in Akashi.
Gindaco is seriously just fried octopus at this point.
The outside isn't crispy, it's rock hard.
Yeah.
Employee pay hasn't budged, but executive pay has gone up 10 to 100 times over the past 30 years.
If you go over that, stop calling it by the same name.
Once it's no longer food for ordinary people, it's a different thing entirely.
Any ramen over 1000 yen should be banned from ramen magazines.
You're just not cut out for eating out.
so yeah, you really should keep the oil thin and minimal.
Obviously.
A shop with lines out the door doesn't have time for all that.
Deep-frying is for speed — it's just not the same as the soft, gooey Kansai-style takoyaki.
DiO came before La Muu anyway — call it by its proper name, Daikokuten.
Maybe it's a blessing from the god of fortune (lol) (pun on "Daikokuten," the chain operator's name, which is also a Japanese god of wealth)
Companies serving Japan's domestic market can't turn a profit because more and more people are living off social security (i.e., taxes).
When you hand money to pensioners or welfare recipients — people whose income doesn't grow through economic activity — they try to stretch that money as far as possible, so they buy the cheapest goods available.
Trading companies chasing that demand import cheaper substitutes from third countries, and the Japanese market gets flooded with cheap goods.
Domestic manufacturers respond to that demand from people dependent on social security by holding down employee wages, even as import costs for raw materials rise.
The only way for Japanese companies to turn a real profit is to cut pensions and welfare payments for people under 80, and put people back to work who are capable of working — thanks to longer healthy lifespans — but choose not to.
The argument you've laid out attributes Japan's long-term economic stagnation and deflationary mindset to "demand skewed toward cheap goods because of growing social security dependency" and "insufficient labor force participation."
From an economics standpoint, this argument contains three fatal logical leaps: a misjudgment of the scale of demand involved, a fallacy of composition, and a factual misunderstanding of labor market structure. In conclusion, simply cutting social security and forcing the elderly to work is far more likely to shrink domestic demand further than to boost corporate profits.
Summary: what's the real prescription here?
Your opinion makes sense as a moral appeal to "self-reliance," but as economic policy it's counterproductive — like draining more blood from a patient who's already bleeding out (i.e., cutting total demand further).
The orthodox economic path to boosting profits at domestic-demand-driven companies isn't cutting social security — it's raising productivity through corporate innovation and capital investment, and then properly distributing the resulting added value as higher wages for the working-age population. Building up a middle class with real purchasing power is the only real shortcut to companies being able to sell goods at fair prices and turn a profit.
= prices kept low simply by suppressing labor costs, i.e. workers' wages.
That's the real story behind the "cheap" deflation era.
Discount stores and bargain chains like La Muu sprang up in every industry,
keeping Japanese wages from ever rising and wrecking the Japanese economy in the process.
My local Hitokuchi Chaya closed down too.
It's sad how few places in Tokyo actually serve decent takoyaki.
If that's your taste, a 500-yen-per-kilo frozen pack you microwave would do just fine.
In that case, I just wouldn't buy it.
Shareholders and consumers clearly see things differently.
Same with McDonald's in the US — they've been jacking up prices and losing customers, but earnings and the stock price are both doing great.
Saizeriya Police, you're under arrest.
As far as Osaka people are concerned, that's a completely different food!
I'm a Tokyo guy but I actually prefer the soft, gooey Osaka style.
Might be because almost all the takoyaki I ate as a kid was that fluffy type — maybe it was made by people from Osaka.
Actually, the lady who ran my local takoyaki stand really was from Osaka.
https://blog-imgs-162.fc2.com/p/o/c/pochi12345/20250502224934974.jpg
It's a hassle but it's so good~ You get full freedom over toppings and how done you cook it.
Though once you buy all the little ingredients separately, it ends up pricier than you'd expect.
You can really feel how ingredient costs have gone up — pretty much across the board.
I just treat it like an event and do it when I have time.
was over 1,000 yen — had to laugh.
1000 yen with no filling is honestly taking the piss.
Even with the price hikes, the money's just flowing into that same industry anyway.
Bacon
Cheese
Beef tendon
Boiled chicken
Boiled pork
Avocado
Shrimp
Boiled white fish
Salmon
Cod roe
Spicy cod roe (mentaiko)
There's all sorts…(((^_^;)!
Octopus itself was originally a substitute for squid, you know.
Background and key points of this discussion
The direct cause of the net loss despite rising revenue is the combination of cost pressure from soaring imported octopus prices and upfront investment in new business ventures. In the thread, many commenters characterized Gindaco’s cooking method as leaning toward “deep-fried” rather than “grilled,” contrasting it with the soft, gooey Kansai-style takoyaki — though this is partly a function of needing quick cooking times across a large chain of stores. A long back-and-forth also developed around the claim that Japan’s deflation and wage stagnation stem from a growing number of social security recipients, along with rebuttals to that claim — but this is a debate rooted in personal economic views, and readers should be careful not to mistake it for a direct explanation of this particular earnings report.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Takoyaki chain operator Hotland falls into the red — Gindaco is selling well, so why the loss?“
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