Mr. Yoshida’s Japanese barbecue sauce was acquired by Heinz almost 25 years ago, but in that time it almost destroyed it. So this year, the brand’s 75-year-old immigrant founder, Junki Yoshida, bought it back and is ready to go “forward, forward, forward.”
The labels of Mr. Yoshida’s Japanese barbecue sauce have long featured a photo of the charismatic founder in his signature look: cowboy hat, glasses, and a smile from ear to ear. The cheerful, smiling head is a key component of the image that Yoshida has cultivated as the brand has grown over the past four decades.
“That story of the great American dream is still alive in our country,” says Junki Yoshida, who recently turned 75. “That’s me.”
Despite his optimism, Yoshida’s journey has had its ups and downs. At 19, the future entrepreneur moved from his native Kyoto to Seattle, and his family disowned him. So in 1982, when the young man began making a sauce in his Oregon basement based on what his mother served at her restaurant in Japan, the recipe took on a vengeful note. The businessman turned the brand he named after himself into a grand success story: by the time he sold the rights to sell the product in the United States to American food giant Heinz (now Kraft Heinz) for $24 million in 2000, the brand’s annual revenue was $25 million.