In September 2019, I prepared a map of Japanese retail for the Berlin headquarters of Infarm — the trading houses, the railway groups and the retail conglomerates, and who owns what. Drawn while I was President of Infarm Japan, it was the map we used to decide which doors to knock on: Kinokuniya, Summit Store and others.
Seven years on, I have redrawn that map. FamilyMart and Lawson have both been delisted, Seven & i has been unbundled, and capital-region supermarkets have consolidated under AEON — while some structures, such as Summit Store under Sumitomo Corporation, have not changed at all.
This report compares the ownership map of 2019 with that of 2026, with commentary from my experience bringing a Berlin agritech startup into Japanese supermarkets.
Download the full report (PDF, 10 pages):