Update: Eel and PB

There was an article in the evening edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, that I did not see until after my posting on eel (unagi). It concerns one of the many cases of mislabeled food in Japan. Food produced in Japan sells at a premium. As a result there have been many cases of imported food, being relabeled as Japanese and therefore sold at a premium. In this article a company was raided over the mislabeling of Chinese eel as Japanese eel. Therefore, the Taiwanese (as distinct from the Chinese) are trying to raise impression of their product so that it will sell at a premium similar to Japanese eel.

Concerning PB, I was mistaken about Seven and I Holdings' private branding, their PB products are sold at a slight discount. Although there is an article in the July 25 edition of Nikkei Shimbun about how all the companies turning to private branding are not immune to commodity prices and are having to increase their prices at the same paces as national brands.

There is also an article in July 26 edition of Nihon Nogyo which addresses if all these retailers are ready to take on the risks associated with product safety, ingredient sourcing, etc. Retailers claim they are ready to take on the risk, but the risks can be huge. One mistake, badly handled can ruin a company.

Musenmai

There is an interesting feature in daily The Japan Food Journal (Japanese language) on July 23rd about musenmai, which is rice that does not need to be washed before preparation. The rice is the same but the processing is different and the taste is essentially the same. Musenmai ends up being about 100 yen more per 5 kg, which is not much of a difference.

This type of rice has become very popular due to the ease of preparation, but the article focuses on the carbon footprint of the two types of rice. They conclude that if you include the consumer's washing and the added cost of cleaning up the solids in the waste water, musenmai has a smaller carbon footprint. Interesting, because I would have thought that extra processing would have lead to the opposite, but there is not extra processing, just different processing.

Taiwanese Eel

This year the days to eat unagi (eel) are July 24th and August 5th. The days are called 土用の丑の日（Doyo no uchi no hi) - sometimes called Eel Day for lack of a better term in English. Actually, I didn't even know there could two days, but they are listed on the Japanese Wikipedia page. The story can be found lots of places on the internet, but essentially during the Edo Era unagi sellers came up with a story that if you eat unagi on the Ushi no Hi day of the Chinese calendar in during the summer it will help you beat the heat.

What I found interesting was that it is such a boost for unagi sales that this year Taiwan eel farmers are conducting a big push to get Japanese to eat Taiwanese eel, stressing the safety and traceability of Taiwanese cultivated eel.

Here is another interesting post about a new eel extract drink.

Nikuman and Seasonal Food

There is an article on Nikkei Trendy about the new nikuman (manju) lineup being introduced by Circle K Sunkus in August.

I find this very interesting because it was not long ago that nikuman was a seasonal food, only sold in convenience stores during the winter months. This was very noticeable, because each convenience store had to clear out table space for the large nikuman heating machines. Now nikuman, and sometimes oden, have become year-round offerings in convenience stores.

I love nikuman and welcome the availability, but also feel that something Japanese is being lost by not following the seasons. It seems very American to insist on exactly what foods you want regardless of season.

Summer Bonuses Down

Bonuses in Japan are usually set by the unions according to parameters such as age, length of employment and a relatively small performance component. The biggest variation from bonus to bonus is due to the company's overall economic performance.

This article on Japan Today notes that bonuses are down due to the overall economy, but I bet the bonuses in the food industry are down much more overall due to the price squeeze most companies are facing.

Japan - Rice as Alternative to Corn, Wheat

There is an article on Bloomberg about how Japan is going to increase rice production as an alternative to the large amounts of wheat and corn Japan imports. This was not feasible in the past, but due to the sky rocketing prices of all grains, domestic rice is no longer simply the protected, high price crop it used to be.

Most of the new rice cultivation will be of high yield varieties aimed at use as livestock feed.

Private Brands (2)

Continuing from yesterday's post, there was an article on Japan Today about how Family Mart is going beyond Private Branding and actually building their own factory for mineral water drinks.
　
Sounds like a good place to start - packaging water is certainly on the low end of the technology scale. It should also be a good opportunity to produce a product at a low price, because some makers clearly make a killing on bottled water.

Private Brands (1)

Private Brands (PB) are brands owned by retailers and not producers. Most well known brands are owned by food producers and are called National Brands (NB). In recent years, the use of PB has exploded as retailers flex their muscles and as a way of keeping product prices down.

This is not a welcome development for food producers because they depend on brand value to keep prices high enough to make profits. With PB, the retailer simply defines the product specifications and then lets producers bid the rights to produce the product. This reduces the food producers to not much more than contract manufacturers. The up side for producers is that such contracts are usually for large volumes.

One example of PB which is not new is the milk you see at McDonald's. If you look on the side, it is manufactured by Meiji Dairies. Newer examples are convenience stores which are increasing the number of PB very rapidly. Seven-Eleven is part of Seven and I Holdings, therefore both Seven-Eleven and Itoyokado both sell the same PB products. It appears to me that this is an attempt to replace NB, because the prices do not appear to be greatly discounted. I suppose this is why the line is called "Seven Premium".

In an article on Nikkei Trendy, the way Lawson is using PB to keep prices down, as well as the the moves by both Lawson and Seven and I Holdings to make a wider variety of more basic items such as seasonings as PB.

Yamazaki Lunch Packs

There is an interesting product profile on Nikkei Trendy of Yamazaki's "lunch pack" series.

Yamazaki Baking Co. is the largest bread manufacturer in Japan. I don't really like the mass produced bread sold in Japan, but that is really the fault of consumer preference. The white breads are very bland and the crust is removed prior to packaging in many cases. These "lunch packs" are a good idea though. Basically, the lunch packs are two pieces of bread mashed together around the edges with something stuffed inside. Here is my list of some of the interesting points made in the article:

1) this product was first introduced in 1984. With the extremely high turnover of most products in Japan, a 24 year history as a best seller is very impressive indeed.

2) over the years, there have been several hundred versions introduced. That sounds like a lot, but product renewal in Japan happens as fast as product turnover, so this is not really that surprising. It does make one curious to see a list of the interesting variations that must have been introduced over the years. No such list is provided. They do however mention the two most popular varieties though - peanut butter and egg salad.

3) the main reasons cited for the product variety are the desire to have enough variations so that people can buy the product daily without getting tired of the same thing every day and also the products which are only sold in certain regions of Japan (something food companies do frequently in Japan).

4) the marketers first thought, as would I, that the main market for these products would be men who want a quick lunch, but they found that women were the main consumers. The reason turned out to be the appeal to women of a portable light lunch.

5) the article claims that the result of the marketing plan focusing on women has taken the sales in 2001 (0.59 billion yen per year) to a projected 40 billion yen in 2008. Wow!

and

6) around one million packs are produced every day.

Fishermen Strike

There have been several fishermen "strikes" over the past few months. It started out with an squid fishermen's strike, and has now broadened.

As with many things in Japan, a direct translation does not always convey what is going on. First, strikes in Japan are rarely the long grueling processes that you see in other countries. I remember when I first came to Japan, there was a strike on the private railway that many people used each day to get to work. When people said that there would be a strike starting the next day, I started wondering how to prepare for the coming weeks or months. But the strike ended up being just several hours long, just long enough to make a small point. The issues were settled not long after.

In this case fishermen are "striking" against the consumer, and it is not clear to me what they hope to gain. The first squid strike caused a temporary jump of 32% in the wholesale price of squid. The purpose was call attention to high fuel prices which make fishing unprofitable.

In this more general strike, the aim is the same - calling attention to the effect of high fuel prices. Eventually, they appear to want fuel subsidies from the government, but have not made specific demands yet.