Yaohan

Yaohan Co., LTD. (株式会社ヤオハン Kabushiki Kaisha Yaohan), or Yaohan (Japanese: ヤオハン or 八百半; Chinese: 八佰伴) was a Japanese retail group. The company was founded in 1930 by Ryohei Wada ( Wada Ryōhei) and incorporated in 1948. Initially a single shop, it later expanded into a major supermarket chain with most retail outlets located in Shizuoka prefecture, south of Tokyo. It was listed on . The store was far more established and notable outside Japan, due to restrictive laws in Japan that made it difficult to set up new businesses, such that by the time it opened its first store in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the company was already in a state of decline due to accumulated debts from over-expansion.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Yaohan group expanded dramatically outside Japan, especially into Hong Kong (since 1984), the People's Republic of China (since 1995) and the USA. At its peak, it had 450 outlets in 16 countries, including 9 in Hong Kong, as well in São Paulo, San José (Costa Rica), Sorocaba (inside local coach station),Los Angeles, Vancouver, Honolulu, London, and San Jose, California. Yaohan's first American location, at Fresno, Calif., was opened in 1979.

Typical of large Japanese companies, new employees were required to go through induction training programs that, in the case of Yaohan, had a strong religious emphasis on the principles of Seicho-no-Ie. Employees also had to go through regular seminars on Seicho-no-Ie and were ultimately required to be members of Seicho-no-Ie. This was not without resistance from its employees. Although the company was less strict on seminar attendance and membership for employees of overseas branches, the same resistance persisted.

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