In the early spring of 1989, a woman was looking at grapes at the food hall in a department store. One employee, who had been watching her, came up to her and asked her if she needed some help. Then the woman said hesitantly:
“I’m so sorry, but . . . can I buy only a part of a cluster of grapes, please?”
It turned out that her daughter, who was suffering from blood cancer, wanted to have some grapes. She tried everywhere to find grapes to grant her daughter’s wish although it wasn’t the season for grapes, and she was finally able to find them at the department store. However, the money she had wasn’t enough to buy a whole cluster of grapes.
Hearing her story, the employee willingly cut some part of a grape cluster, as much as she wanted, and even wrapped it nicely. Although the employee knew that the value of grapes would go down if she cut it, she made that choice based on the department store’s operation policy to prioritize customers. Thankfully, the woman was able to feed her sick daughter with some grapes.
As this was known to many people through the daughter’s doctor, this department store became known as a sincere enterprise that put customers first. Although the value of that one cluster of grapes went down, it actually gained much greater value.