Overview
Mitsuuroko Provisions is a Japanese company whose business runs through direct-operated and voluntary-chain retail stores, convenience stores, and restaurants. Under the Mitsuuroko Grocery name, and under the banners RIC, RIC Mart, and Tac-Mate, the company operated roughly 150 retail and convenience outlets as of 2019, alongside assorted shops and cafeterias, 48 branches of the bakery chain Azabu-Juban Mont-Thabor, and a single Japanese-style cafe called Coffee Kokindo in Aichi Prefecture.
The brand portfolio has never been tidy. Grocery operations have carried RIC, RIC Mart, R Shop, Tac-Mate (including stores renamed from Coco Store), Yamazaki Y-Shop MG, and Yamazaki Shop. The cafe side has included Coffee Kokindo, Tully’s Coffee, and Motomachi Coffee, whose shares Mitsuuroko Provisions acquired in full on April 1, 2024, making it a subsidiary. On the bakery side stands Azabu-Juban Mont-Thabor.
A number of banners have been retired. RIC Store, a brand used for Coco Store and Every One conversions in Kyushu, is gone; outlets in Honshu and Okinawa were switched to Tac-Mate, and the remainder either became MG or Yamazaki Shop stores or closed outright. Mitsuuroko Grocery (MG) itself was a new format born after the Mitsuuroko transfer. Poplar, Poplar Tac-Mate, Poplar RIC, Poplar MG (converted to Yamazaki Y-Shop MG), and Seikatsusaika have all passed out of the company’s hands.
The convenience store side is where the story gets specific. Tac-Mate began in 1993, when Izumic opened its first store in Minato Ward, Nagoya. It started as a voluntary chain across the Tokai and Kinki regions before spreading: a first Chugoku-region store in Ono, Hiroshima Prefecture in 1995, a Tac-Mate Tokyo headquarters in Koto Ward in 2004, and Kanto expansion the following year. By 2005 the banner counted 84 stores; by 2016, the year of the Coco Store conversion, it had shrunk to around 20. Its distinguishing feature is a telephone delivery service for items stocked in the storefront, aimed at elderly customers — a holdover from the days when most franchisees were liquor shops. The name itself is a compound: “tac” from takuhai, or delivery, and “mate” meaning companion. A mini-supermarket joint format with JA once carried the name JA-TAC; it has closed.
RIC and RIC Mart operate as voluntary chains with loyalty requirements looser than those of the major convenience store operators. Neither round-the-clock opening nor year-round operation is imposed, so some stores shut at night or on weekends and holidays, and some bake bread and prepare boxed lunches on site. The banner once reached 630 stores; by 2001 it counted 537, with 2000 sales of 31 billion yen — the largest convenience operation within Kyushu Convenience Systems. Decline set in afterward: a 2006 economic magazine reported plans to add ten stores and reach 230, but by 2009 the count had fallen to 193.
History
Two corporate bloodlines run through Mitsuuroko Provisions, and they joined under circumstances that neither side could have described as ceremonial. The first began in April 1984, when a convenience store operations headquarters was established inside the offices of Ryoyu Pan. That July, the first R Shop opened in Fukuoka. In April 1992, Ryoyu Chain Support System was incorporated as a Ryoyu Pan subsidiary for the convenience business. The first RIC Mart opened in Kumamoto Prefecture in September 1998. In November 1999, the company helped establish Kyushu Convenience Systems alongside Kotobukiya Convenience Systems and Kyushu Spar Headquarters, becoming its subsidiary. A business tie-up with Coco Store followed in June 2000, and the company renamed itself Rick Support Systems that November. In June 2001 the parent, Kyushu Convenience Systems, came under Coco Store’s umbrella; in June 2006, with Kyushu Convenience Systems absorbed by merger, the company became a subsidiary of Coco Store. November 2009 brought the name Coco Store Retail. On September 1, 2010, it began joint product development and procurement in Kyushu with Ministop, alongside Coco Store and Every One. On June 1, 2012, Coco Store took over the Tac-Mate voluntary chain business from Izumic.
The second bloodline was shorter and stranger. It began in May 2001 as a limited company called Fuji Seisui. In February 2005, Mitsuuroko took an equity stake, and the name became Fuji Seisui Co., Ltd. In April 2012 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsuuroko and was renamed Mitsuuroko Beverage. In April 2016, a company split moved the beverage business to Katsumizu, the name changed to Mitsuuroko Provisions, and Coco Store Retail was made a wholly owned subsidiary.
What happened in between was the transaction that decided the next decade. In November 2015, FamilyMart resolved to sell all shares of Coco Store Retail to the Mitsuuroko Group the following April. Alongside this, roughly 150 food and restaurant outlets operated by Coco Store Retail as of 2015, plus around 250 Coco Store convenience stores whose locations overlapped with FamilyMart’s, were announced for transfer from FamilyMart to the Mitsuuroko Group. On August 15, 2015, Coco Store dissolved its capital and business tie-up with Ministop. On October 1, Coco Store’s parent was acquired by FamilyMart. On November 30, FamilyMart and Mitsuuroko Group Holdings agreed to transfer all Coco Store Retail shares to Mitsuuroko Beverage the following April, a transfer that included some voluntary-chain retail and convenience stores under Coco Store’s jurisdiction. On December 1, Coco Store was absorbed by merger and became a FamilyMart subsidiary.
April 15, 2016, arrived on schedule: the full share transfer was executed, and FamilyMart handed over a maximum of roughly 380 of Coco Store’s approximately 800 stores, voluntary chain included. Coco Store Retail had been a company of the MICS group centered on Izumic, and now it entered the Mitsuuroko Group fold together with part of its convenience and retail operations. Negotiations narrowed the numbers. On August 26, FamilyMart announced it would transfer 69 Coco Store and Every One stores to Coco Store Retail effective October 1. The date then moved to December 10, and the store count fell to 30 — and at 30 the transfer stayed. FamilyMart and the Mitsuuroko Group nonetheless signed a comprehensive partnership agreement. Some stores, such as those in the Goto Islands of Nagasaki Prefecture, went their own way by the operator’s choice, belonging to neither FamilyMart nor Mitsuuroko, and converted instead to other chains including Poplar. From September of that year, Coco Store outlets in Kanto, Tokai, Kinki, and Okinawa were progressively rebranded as Tac-Mate, while the chain’s Kyushu stores and Every One outlets became RIC Store. In April 2016, the same month as the share transfer, Coco Store Retail moved its head office to Nagoya.
On December 14, 2016, Coco Store Retail declared it would convert roughly 30 directly operated stores — Tac-Mate and RIC — to Mitsuuroko Grocery and launch a grocery business. On April 1, 2017, the company changed its name from Coco Store Retail to Mitsuuroko Grocery and moved its main office to Tokyo. The first new-format Mitsuuroko Grocery store, Kuwana Kisosansen Park, opened on October 6, 2017. A further concept — hand-made stores rooted in their communities — was rolled out from 2017 onward.
Consolidation followed. On January 22, 2019, Mitsuuroko Group Holdings resolved at a board meeting that Mitsuuroko Provisions would absorb Mitsuuroko Grocery effective March 1. On March 31 of that year, roughly 50 outlets from the shop and restaurant business were transferred to Shidax Ai. In 2019, 14 Kyushu stores had operated in partnership with Poplar; when Poplar scaled back its operations, the arrangement switched to Yamazaki Shop in spring 2021, and three former Every One outlets continued trading as Y-Shop MG.
Then came the closures. In March 2021, Mitsuuroko Grocery, Poplar MG, Poplar RIC, Poplar, and RIC Store either closed or converted to Yamazaki Y-Shop MG. In April 2024, Sweet Style was merged into the company; Motomachi Coffee became a subsidiary and the company renamed itself Mitsuuroko Partners.
Business Model
A convenience store chain that does not require its stores to stay open all night is, by the standards of the industry, something close to a philosophical position. Mitsuuroko Provisions built its retail structure on that position. RIC and RIC Mart run as voluntary chains, and the loyalty obligations they place on member stores are lighter than those of the major convenience store operators. Neither round-the-clock operation nor year-round opening is imposed. Some stores close at night, or on weekends and holidays. Some make bread and boxed lunches on the premises rather than receiving them from a central commissary. The banner’s economics rest on the franchisee keeping a larger share of independence, and on the parent collecting whatever flows from a looser affiliation.
Tac-Mate went the other way. It sits comparatively closer to a franchise chain in character, and once handled bill payment agency services at the counter. Its distinctive revenue mechanism is the telephone. A customer calls the store; the store delivers goods stocked on its own shelves. The service is aimed at elderly residents, and it exists because most franchisees were liquor shops that had been delivering for years before anyone called it a convenience store strategy. The name records the logic: “tac” from takuhai, delivery; “mate” for companion. A mini-supermarket joint format with JA once operated as JA-TAC. It closed.
Scale, in this business, is a number that moves in both directions and is reported without ceremony. RIC at one point reached 630 stores. In 2001 it counted 537, and sales for 2000 came to 31 billion yen — the largest convenience operation within Kyushu Convenience Systems. A 2006 economic magazine reported a plan to add 10 stores and reach a 230-store structure; by 2009 the count stood at 193. Tac-Mate ran 84 stores in 2005 and around 20 by the 2016 Coco Store conversion. The newest format, Mitsuuroko Grocery, launched with roughly 30 directly operated stores converted from Tac-Mate and RIC. The company also runs assorted shops and cafeterias, 48 branches of the bakery chain Azabu-Juban Mont-Thabor, and a Japanese-style cafe, Coffee Kokindo, in Aichi Prefecture. Its cafe holdings have included Tully’s Coffee and, after April 1, 2024, Motomachi Coffee as a wholly owned subsidiary.
The voluntary-chain model explains the shape of the declines as much as it explains the growth. Where the affiliation is loose, a store that converts or closes costs the parent little and costs the record one entry. Where the affiliation is tighter, the count is easier to hold and harder to expand. Mitsuuroko Provisions has spent its recent history managing both kinds of arithmetic at once.
Cultural Impact
Some of what a regional chain leaves behind is not measured in stores. The Tac-Mate delivery service carved out a role for the convenience store as a lifeline for elderly customers in areas where a liquor shop already knew everyone’s address. That arrangement outlasted the banner’s peak store count. RIC’s no-overnight-opening policy preserved a category of small operator that the major chains had largely squeezed out of the format. When the Mitsuuroko Grocery conversions, Poplar MG, Poplar RIC, Poplar, and RIC Store banners closed or became Yamazaki Y-Shop MG stores in March 2021, the change registered on the storefronts of individual operators rather than in any single headline. The three former Every One outlets in Kyushu that continued trading as Y-Shop MG after the Poplar partnership gave way in spring 2021 are a small illustration of how a chain’s end is usually distributed: not one shutdown, but a series of renamed signs.