![The light of pigeons will disappear from East Hokkaido...Ito-Yokado Kitami store, loved by the community for 39 years, will close in August 2024.|Domingo](https://p1-634a4370.imageflux.jp/w=768,f=webp:auto,q=78/https%3A%2F%2Fdomingo.ne.jp%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F12%2F381ab2fa407cc16e9ef2713e66e09415.jpg)
EDITORIALS
The light of pigeons will disappear from East Hokkaido...Ito-Yokado Kitami store, loved by the community for 39 years, will close in August 2024.
Ito-Yokado Kitami, which opened in 1985 and has continued to support the kitchen of the Okhotsk area, has announced that it will close at the end of August 2024. This is the third Ito-Yokado store to close in East Hokkaido, following Ito-Yokado Kushiro in 2019 and the upcoming Ito-Yokado Obihiro in June 2024. As the long-established supermarket that led the way for so long is about to disappear from Doto, we take a look back at Ito-Yokado, Hokkaido, and the history of the Ito-Yokado Kitami store.
Ito-Yokado in Hokkaido continues to decline
![イトーヨーカドー北見店](https://p1-634a4370.imageflux.jp/w=768,f=webp:auto,q=78/https%3A%2F%2Fdomingo.ne.jp%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F12%2F451a5bfcec6bc7d002fdc0c7cd8fc9c6.jpg)
The history of Ito-Yokado in Hokkaido began with the opening of its first store in Obihiro in 1975. Thereafter, stores continued to open in Sapporo, Tomakomai, Ebetsu and Asahikawa, and by around 2000 there were 15 stores operating in all Hokkaido. Now, more than 20 years later, according to the management plan of Seven & i Holdings, which operates Ito-Yokado, the policy of concentrating capital in the Tokyo metropolitan area and closing regional stores has resulted in a series of store closures in rural areas that are difficult to make profitable.
In East Hokkaido, the Obihiro store will close in June 2024, followed by the closure of the Kitami store in August 2024, marking the disappearance of Ito-Yokado in East Hokkaido.
The Kitami store, which opened in 1985, also promotes local products
![イトーヨーカドー北見店](https://p1-634a4370.imageflux.jp/w=768,f=webp:auto,q=78/https%3A%2F%2Fdomingo.ne.jp%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F12%2F7b8e012074aaf71838857bea420027a3.jpg)
The Ito-Yokado Kitami store opened in February 1985. It has long been loved by the local community, and in 2016 it signed a collaboration agreement with Kitami City regarding the expansion of sales channels for local products and local production for local consumption. There are now more opportunities to pick up local products at the store. In addition, many community-based events were held, such as local handmade artists gathering several times every few months to sell numerous handmade works, and students from an agricultural high school selling vegetables and processed products they grew themselves.
The closure of the Ito-Yokado Kitami store has caused the loss of these community-based events, which is sad news for those who were looking forward to them.
- 1
- 2