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Japanese food prices rise, people's' basket of veg

Date锛�2025-03-06 18:58Editer锛歛dminRead锛�锛�

The rise in food prices has led Japanese consumers to search for cheap goods, "Bloomberg reported on the 3rd. The rise in food prices has forced Japanese consumers to tighten their belts as their purchasing power is declining. Recently, the prices of rice, eggs, cabbage and other daily foods on the Japanese market have risen sharply. Statistics show that in March 2025 alone, 2343 kinds of food are planned to rise in price, with an average price rise of 17%. As a result, many consumers and business operators are forced to change their daily expense plans. So, how much impact has the current rise in food prices had on the consumption of the Japanese people? A special correspondent from Global Times conducted a visit and investigation in Japan regarding this matter.
The frequency of consumption has decreased, but the expenditure has not changed
Japanese residents have been affected by rising prices in recent years. After the "rice shortage" led to a rise in rice prices, vegetable prices in Japan have gradually spiraled out of control recently. A vegetarian friend of the reporter has reduced the frequency of going to the supermarket by nearly half, and has also given up the habit of eating one or two fruits every day. However, she found that the expenses in February were almost the same as before. Another friend with a high income now chooses to take a detour to the side street side vegetable shop instead of the supermarket when buying groceries. She told reporters, "The fruits in high-end supermarkets are indeed beautiful and delicious, but an ugly orange costs more than 500 yen (100 yen is about 4.9 yuan), and a Fuji apple costs more than 400 yen. It's better to go to a small vegetable shop and buy some ordinary but cheap ones
On the Amazon Fresh platform, a cabbage has already cost over 1000 yen, with cabbage costing around 450 to 500 yen. A mother with three children told Global Times reporters that she hasn't eaten these two dishes for nearly a month, and when making Japanese style stir fried noodles at home, she also uses bean sprouts instead of cabbage. An 80 year old man told NHK television reporters, "Leafy vegetables are particularly expensive, and it's really difficult to live on pensions
Regarding the reason for the high prices of leafy vegetables, the head of the Horticultural Crop Department of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries stated that extreme high temperatures in summer and low temperatures and little rainfall in winter last year led to a shortage of cabbage supply and price increases. Consumers are turning to cabbage, increasing demand, but insufficient winter precipitation also affects cabbage growth, leading to tight supply. It is expected that the price of cabbage will stabilize after it is launched in the spring of March. But the person in charge also stated that it is currently unclear why cabbage prices, which were already on a downward trend, have risen again.
In addition to vegetables, there are many other foods that continue to rise in price in Japan. Among the 2343 food items planned to increase prices in March, processed foods such as frozen foods have the highest number, reaching 1381. Bloomberg cited data from Japan's Imperial Database, stating that it is expected that the prices of about 20000 products in the food industry will rise this year, far exceeding last year's price increase.
Small and medium-sized enterprises face challenges in their operations
The comprehensive price increase of food has caused great difficulties for small and medium-sized enterprises, especially individual operators. A restaurant in Shinjuku, Tokyo consumes approximately 15 kilograms of rice per day. Due to rising costs, the restaurant has uniformly increased the price of all dishes by 50 yen since last month. Nevertheless, the profits of the store are still severely squeezed. Due to 90% of the customers in the store being nearby college students, the shop owner has to travel to major supermarkets every day in search of cheaper rice to reduce procurement costs.
On February 28th, a 63 year old brand called "Benjian Box Restaurant" in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, a well-known rice producing area in Japan, stopped selling to individual customers. The Box Restaurant sells over 1000 boxed meals every day. Due to the increase in rice prices, the owner has reduced the amount of food per boxed meal from 250 grams to 200 grams. However, it is still difficult to maintain profitability and even to pay the retirement pensions of 14 employees.
The Zhonghua Commodity Store near the reporter's residence can provide shopping and delivery services, with a starting price of only 3000 yen. However, due to the rise in vegetable prices and increased demand, the minimum delivery amount was raised to 6000 yen six months ago. Other e-commerce platforms have also raised delivery fees, and platforms such as Amazon occasionally offer fresh discounted products that require a few days of reservation before delivery can be made.
Bloomberg reported that as Japan becomes increasingly reliant on imports, food has become a pain point for policy makers. Japan's food self-sufficiency rate (in calories) has decreased from 50% about 30 years ago to below 40% in the 2023 fiscal year. In 2024, Japan's food imports will be about 9 times the export value. The price of imported food was affected by global events such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the depreciation of the yen also made imported food more expensive. Domestic supply is affected by uncontrollable factors such as climate change. In addition, non food costs such as logistics fees, labor costs, energy costs, etc., such as plastic packaging materials, are all on the rise. Due to the difficulty for enterprises to offset the increase in production costs by reducing internal costs, profits are constantly being compressed.
There is still a risk of soaring vegetable prices
In the past two months, Japan has significantly increased vegetable imports to stabilize vegetable prices. According to data from the Japanese Ministry of Finance, the import volume of cabbage in January reached 17400 tons, a year-on-year increase of 43 times, of which 90% came from China. The import volume of cabbage has increased from almost zero last year to 1440 tons, and the import volume of lettuce has also reached 2023 tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.7 times. To alleviate the pressure of rice prices, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plans to release 210000 tons of reserve rice through two rounds of bidding, which is expected to enter the retail channel in late March.
But Yahoo Japan News recently reported that the latest summer weather forecast for 2025 released by the Japan Meteorological Agency seems to indicate the risk of vegetable prices soaring again. It is predicted that the surrounding areas of Japan will be covered by warm air masses from June to August, and the temperature nationwide may be higher than the average level in previous years. Generally speaking, sustained high temperatures will affect the growth of vegetables.
Zhang Yulai, professor and vice president of the Institute of Japanese Studies of Nankai University, analyzed in an interview with the Global Times on the 4th that the current rise in food prices in Japan is the result of multiple factors at home and abroad, and the root is the imported inflation formed after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. He explained that firstly, the depreciation of the yen led to expensive imported food, which impacted Japan's already externally dependent food consumption structure. Secondly, the shortage of domestic labor has pushed up the production costs of enterprises. Furthermore, Japan's decarbonization transformation has also led to an increase in production costs for many industries, including food production. He stated that these inevitable factors, combined with the reduction in production of specific foods such as cabbage, and occasional factors such as current international tariff uncertainty, have collectively pushed up the overall prices of Japanese food. Zhang Yulai mentioned that the ineffective intervention measures of the Japanese government are partly due to differences in macroeconomic policy direction between the government and the central bank. If the current inflation situation is not alleviated, it will have a deeper impact on consumer psychology.