Lawson Terauchicho 1-chome shop in Moriguchi, Osaka, Japan

Lawson, Inc. (株式会社ローソン Kabushiki Kaisha Rōson, TYO: 2651) is a convenience store franchise chain in Japan. The store originated in the United States, the state of Ohio, but today exists as a Japanese company and is the second largest convenience store chain in the country behind 7-Eleven.^[1]

The Japanese company has its headquarters in East Tower of Gate City Ohsaki in Ōsaki, Shinagawa, Tokyo.^[2]

Origins in Ohio [edit]

In 1939,^[3] a dairy owner named J.J. Lawson started a store at his Broad Street dairy plant in Cuyahoga Falls, near Akron, Ohio, to sell his milk. The Lawson's Milk Company grew to a chain of stores, primarily in Ohio.^[3] Lawson was bought out by Consolidated Foods in 1959. Lawson's convenience stores were common in Ohio from the 1960s through the mid-1980s.

Consolidated was renamed Sara Lee in 1985.^[4] At about the same time, Lawson's stores in the United States were sold to Dairy Mart,^[3] a smaller chain of convenience stores located in Enfield, Connecticut. Dairy Mart moved its headquarters to Cuyahoga Falls, renamed the Lawson's stores, and operated the chain as Dairy Mart for the next 17 years. Under Dairy Mart, the chain was not without controversy.^[5] Dairy Mart was sued by the American Family Association, after a Dairy Mart manager in Ohio complained that the company's policy of selling pornography subjected her to sexual and religious harassment.^[6] The court case, Stanley v. Lawson Co., gained fame as a test of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[7]

In 2002, Alimentation Couche-Tard of Laval, Quebec bought the assets and name of Dairy Mart. Most of the former Dairy Mart stores — many of which were either originally Lawson's stores, or were located in communities in which Lawson's once had a presence — were converted to the Circle K brand. Due to popular response from consumers in Ohio and elsewhere, however, Alimentation Couche-Tard announced that Lawson's Chip Dip would continue to be sold "no matter what the name of the store", as was reported in the Akron Beacon-Journal.^[8]

Presence in Japan [edit]

Inside a Lawson in Ontakesan

In 1974, Consolidated signed a formal agreement with Daiei to open the first Lawson stores in Japan. On April 15, 1975 Daiei Lawson Co., Ltd. was established as a wholly owned subsidiary of Daiei, Inc.. The first store opened in Sakurazuka, Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture in June 1975.

In September 1979 the official name was changed to Lawson Japan, Inc. Originally a joint venture between Japanese consumer retailing giant Daiei and U.S.-based Lawson Co., Lawson was a wholly owned subsidiary of Daiei until 2001, when Mitsubishi Corporation became the main shareholder as Daiei's slide began.

Lawson is one of the top convenience store chains in Japan, second only to convenience franchise giant 7-Eleven. All of the usual Japanese convenience store goods such as magazines, video games, manga, soft drinks, onigiri, and bento are available. They have occasionally collaborated on tie-ins with various companies, including Koei's PlayStation 3 game Dynasty Warriors 7.^[9] In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, a Lawson store in author Hirohiko Araki's native Sendai was remodeled to look like the "Owson" store that appears in part 4 of the series.^[10]

To date, Lawson operates in all 47 prefectures of Japan, as well as in Shanghai and Chongqing, China. In August 2011, Lawson opened their first store in Jakarta, Indonesia ^[11]

Return to the United States [edit]

With the establishment of "Lawson USA Hawaii, Inc." Lawson returned to the U.S. market, with two locations in Honolulu opening on July 7, 2012. ^[12] One of the stores is in the Sheraton Waikiki, while the other is in the Moana Surfrider Hotel. ^[13] Further expansion to both Hawaii and the mainland U.S. is planned, with 30 stores planned for Hawaii alone over the next three years.^[14]

Solar power [edit]

As of May 2012 Lawson had solar equipment at only 20 of their stores, but the company announced in June 2012 that it would install solar panels at 2,000 stores of their 10,000 Japanese stores^[15] starting in September 2012 and finishing by the end of February 2014. It was estimated that each store would generate an about 11,000kwh per year. Just under 2,000kwh of this would go toward climate control and other in-house uses, which would account for about 1% of each store's power consumption. The rest of the electricity would be sold under Japan's feed-in tariff system that came into operation on July 1, 2012. It was estimated that the company's income from the power generated by the 2,000 stores would come to more than 700 million yen a year.^[16]

Lawson planned to install solar panels at 1,000 stores in the 2012-2013 financial year, and 1,000 more in the 2013-2014 financial year. It chose solar panels from Solar Frontier, along with the same company's online monitoring system for the first 1,000 stores.^[17]

Lawson in Indonesia [edit]

In Indonesia, Lawson is a subsidiary of Alfamidi (PT Midi Utama Indonesia Tbk). ^[18]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

	Tokyo portal
	Companies portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lawson

• (Japanese) LAWSON, Inc.
• (English) LAWSON, Inc. corporate information
• (Chinese) Hualian Lawson (in Shanghai)