Happy Women's Map 神奈川県 日本初海外進出を果した八百半デパートの創業者 和田 カツ 女史 / The founder of Yaohan, Ms. Katsu Wada
「感謝と奉仕と愛の祈りの商人の道」
"A Merchant's Path of Gratitude, Service, and Love Prayers"
和田 カツ 女史
Ms. Katsu Wada
1906 - 1993
神奈川県小田原市 生誕
Born in Odawara-city, Kanagaw-ken
日本スーパーマーケット業界初の国外進出を果した八百半デパートの創業者。TVドラマ「おしん」のモデルと言われています。
Ms. Katsu Wada is a founder of Yaohan, the first Japanese supermarket industry to expand overseas. She is a model of Oshin.
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「子供のために生きる」
カツは小田原の八百屋「八百半」の長女として生まれます。店の台所仕事を引き受けるかわりに、高等小学校から小田原高等女学校（後の神奈川県立小田原城内高等学校）へと進学、当時では数少ない女学生となります。教員に就職するか会社員や銀行員の妻となることを夢見るも、父親の一存で従業員の和田良平とカツを結婚させられ、夫妻で八百屋を継ぎます。カツは泣く泣く子供を立派に育てることを生きがいにすると決意、子供を大学に行かせたい一心で、朝5時に起きて夜12時まで働きづめで積極的に働きます。24歳の時に熱海市銀座の旅館の軒先を借りて「八百半熱海支店」を開店。リヤカーを引いて得意先の旅館への野菜を卸しに行きます。熱海には町一番の八百屋があってトラック1台分の野菜を収納できる冷蔵庫を備えているのに対抗、カツは夜間も野菜を店に並べたままにして夫と交代で販売を始めます。夜露で野菜の新鮮さは増す上に、映画館やダンスホールなどで遅く帰宅する人々が店に寄るようになり、芸妓を連れた男性が見栄を張って高級な物をたくさん買うなど大繁盛します。平均睡眠4時間の生活が、十数年続きます。店もようやく軌道に乗り始め、生活も安定してきた矢先に夫が倒れ、長女が2歳で早世、息子達の子育てに苦悩します。カツは新宗教団体「生長の家」に入信して熱心な信者となります。
「感謝と奉仕の商人道」
「熱海大火」で20年かけて築いた八百半商店が一夜にして全焼。得意先である旅館の好意で、店の再建まで旅館の軒下を売り場として借りながら、さらに仕入先の好意で勘定をツケにしてもらいながら商売を継続します。カツは考えます。旅館相手の野菜卸事業は売上の割に資金繰りが苦しい。御用聞き・配達の手間の割に未回収金も板前への賄賂も負担が大きい。夫を引き連れて、現金正札販売で有名なベニマル（現在のヨークベニマル）を福島県郡山まで見学に行きます。そこでは八百半の１０分の１の広さの店舗に客が押し寄せ２倍以上も売り上げていました。早速、株式会社八百半食品デパートとして再出発、主に一般消費者相手に食料品の現金正札販売を始めます。品物を安く販売して世界一物価の高い熱海の住民たちの大評判になります。仕事が多忙を極める中、一部の従業員がストライキを起こして旅館に立てこもる事件が発生。カツは新宗教団体「生長の家」を取り入れた社員教育に力を入れて社員を一つにまとめあげようとします。退職した女子社員の再雇用・育児休業・育児短縮勤務を業界でいち早く導入する一方で、信仰を受け入れない従業員は解雇していきます。まもなく長男に事業を譲ると、カツは日本流通業初の海外進出を果たしたヤオハン社員の教育のために精力的に、シンガポール、コスタリカ、アメリカ、香港、マレーシア、タイ、中国、マカオ、イギリス、など１６か国４５０店舗を飛び回ります。バブル崩壊と時を同じくしてカツが死去するとヤオハンも1997年に倒産します。
"Live for my children"
Katsu was born as the eldest daughter of Yaohan, a greengrocer in Odawara. Instead of accepting a job in the store's kitchen, she went on to attend Odawara Girls' High School (later Kanagawa Prefectural Odawara Jonai High School) from an elementary school, where she was one of the few female students at the time. She dreams of becoming a teacher or the wife of a company employee or a banker, but her father forces her to marry Ryohei Wada, an employee, and the couple inherits the greengrocer. She has decided that her purpose in life will be to raise her crying child well, and she is determined to send her child to college, so she wakes up at 5 a.m. and works hard until 12 p.m. When she was 24 years old, she rented the eaves of an inn in Ginza, Atami City, and opened the ``Yaohan Atami Branch''. She pulls a cart and goes to wholesale vegetables to her customer's inn. In Atami, the town's best greengrocer is equipped with a refrigerator that can store a truckload of vegetables, but Katsu leaves the vegetables on display at night and takes turns selling them with her husband. start. Not only did the night dew make the vegetables fresher, but people who came home late from movie theaters and dance halls started stopping by the store, and the store became very prosperous, with men with geishas showing off and buying lots of luxury goods. Masu. An average of 4 hours of sleep lasts for over ten years. Just when the store finally started to get back on track and her life stabilized, her husband passed away, her eldest daughter died young at the age of two, and she struggled to raise her sons. She joins a new religious organization, Seicho no Ie, and she becomes an ardent believer.
“A Merchant's Path of Gratitude and Service”
Yaohan Shoten, which took 20 years to build, was completely destroyed in the Atami Fire. With the kindness of one of our customers, the inn, we are renting the space under the eaves of the inn as a sales area until the store is rebuilt, and we are continuing our business with the kindness of our suppliers, who cover our bills. Katsu thinks. The vegetable wholesale business, which caters to inns, is having a difficult cash flow compared to its sales. The uncollected money and the bribes to the chefs are a huge burden considering the time and effort involved in ordering and delivering the goods. With her husband in tow, she went to Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, to see Benimaru (now York-Benimaru), which is famous for selling cash stamps. There, customers flocked to the store, which was one-tenth the size of Yaoyorandan, and sales were more than twice as high. Immediately, the company relaunched as Yaohan Foods Department Store Co., Ltd. and began selling food products in cash, primarily to general consumers. They sell their products at low prices and become popular among the residents of Atami, the most expensive city in the world. While work is extremely busy, an incident occurs where some employees go on strike and barricade themselves at an inn. Katsu tries to unite his employees by focusing on employee education that incorporates the new religious organization Seicho no Ie. We will be among the first in the industry to rehire retired female employees, take childcare leave, and introduce shortened working hours for childcare, while dismissing employees who do not accept their faith. Shortly after handing over the business to his eldest son, Katsu worked tirelessly to train Yaohan employees, who were the first in the Japanese distribution industry to expand overseas. We will fly around 450 stores in 16 countries. When Katsu died at the same time as the bubble burst, Yaohan also went bankrupt in 1997.
-静岡新聞 Shizuoka News
-NHKテレビ小説 おしん NHK TV drama OSHIN
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