Burger King Celebrates 1st Anniversary in Japan . . . again

Burger King was in Japan from 1996 to 2001, but reportedly could not compete with McDonald's in a price war. I also heard at the time that there were marketing disagreements with partners and people in different parts of the company. Even if that was not true, it made sense to me at the time. The offerings were largely the same as in the US, where you forget about calories and focus on size and strong taste.

Personally, I thought that the Burger King taste was the main problem, even though I like it myself. Burger King sandwiches have a strong meaty taste and aroma which is not common in Japan. This is in contrast with McDonald's sandwiches which are much milder in this respect.

Now they are back for another try. They only have 6 locations so far - all in Tokyo. Japanese tastes have been changing over the years, so maybe Japan is ready for Burger King now. Recently monster-size burgers at McDonald's and other chains have been popular, so the size of Burger King's sandwiches might prove to be popular.

This time around, Burger King Japan opened its first store on June 8, 2007 and therefore is now celebrating its one year anniversary. Good Luck.

100 Yen Vending Machines

The current price for 350 ml cans of non-alcoholic drinks is 120 yen, but you can find discount outlets and vending machines if you keep you eyes open. Here is a picture of Dydo and Suntory discount vending machines side-by-side.

The "To" in Torui and Muto

This is a picture of a typical "muto" (or zero sugar, 無糖) black coffee - Pokka brand Biz Time Cafe Black. On such products there is a listing for torui (sugars, 糖類) separate from the obligatory carbohydrate (炭水化物) category. What exactly are the criteria for sugars?

This is a link to an informative guide which can be found on a Kanagawa Government webpage, but is also referenced and linked to by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Sugars are any mono- or disaccarides (excluding alcohols). It is that simple, but it is certainly not perfect. By this definition, products might be fructose-free but still contain sugars - milk for example.

Canned Coffee Survey

One very good source of information on Japanese trends and products is Nikkei Trendy (Japanese). This week there is a survey on canned coffee use and preferences. For those interested in this topic for professional reasons, the entire survey is available for sale. For those who simply have an interest in trends, the on-line version should be quite sufficient.

I will just mention a few points I find interesting.
1) preference: sugar free/black > latte-type > low sugar/milk added > sugar/milk added > low sugar/black > no sugar/milk > expresso > sugar/black,
2) the biggest deviation in the above is with latte-type drinks (including cafe au lait) which are much more popular among younger people than older people,
3) canned coffee is much more popular than chilled cup coffee, only among women does the preference come close to that of canned coffee,
4) reason for drinking canned coffee: change mood or feeling > relax > wake up > no reason > need for something in mouth > to concentrate,
5) people who smoke or frequent convenience stores have the strongest preference for canned coffee,
6) ability to mention a brand name: Boss > Georgia >>>> Wonda > Fire > others

The interest in low sugar products is clear, as is the excellent marketing job Suntory has done with the Boss brand.

Breast Milk or Infant Formula not Water

There is an important posting on the Junkfood Science blog concerning hyponatremic seizures resulting from infants being given water to drink. This can also occur if infants are fed diluted infant formula. In short, inadequate sodium levels cause hyponatremia, which in turn leads to an osmotic shift of water from the plasma into cells (such as brain cells) and finally symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. It can also happen in adults (causing confusion and coma), but infants are particularly susceptible.

There is a concern that with increasing food prices, poor mothers may try to stretch infant formula by watering it down. This is certainly not the right thing to do.

Breast milk is the best option for infants. If mother's cannot breastfeed their infants, infant formula is the next best option. Food companies put a great deal of research into making infant formula as close to breast milk as possible. The science in this area has progressed a great deal in recent years, but it is important to use infant formula as directed. After all for that important period, infant formula will be the only nutrition the child will consume.

Taking the discussion a little further, cow's milk is not appropriate for infants either. The composition of cow's milk and mother's milk is significantly different. This is something that was not fully realized a generation or so ago.

Soft Drinks and Cavities

There is an interesting paper in Nutrition Research "Acidic Beverages Increase the Risk of in vitro Tooth Erosion". A group at U of Iowa College of Dentistry compared the effect of Gatorade, Red Bull, Coke, Diet Coke, and Apple Juice, as examples of sports drinks, energy drinks, carbonated soft drinks, diet drinks and juices, respectively, on extracted teeth.

In a pretty simple setup, they simply soaked the extracted teeth in each drink for 25 hours, refreshing the liquid every 5 hours. The acidities of the drinks were measured by straight forward titration. They only went high-tech, and thus beyond what you could do in a high school chemistry class, when they started to measuring the lesions.

Interestingly, the lesion depths corresponded roughly but not exactly with the acidity of the drinks. The most acidic drink was Red Bull, but Gatorade did the most harm. The lesions were measured in micrometers and the results were Gatorade (131), Red Bull (100), Coke (92), Diet Coke (61) and 100% Apple Juice (57).

Anyone who has seen the chemistry demonstration in which a highly acidic solution is used to dissolve a tooth, will not be surprised. This study appears to be a more scientific recreation of the same thing. It still does not tell you exactly what is going to happen under in vivo conditions, but basic chemistry suggests that anyone who spends a great deal of time each day swishing around acidic liquids is not doing his or her teeth much good.

If you want the opposite effect, try dairy. There appear to be a number of reasons why dairy actually acts to inhibit tooth decay (calcium, active proteins, beneficial bacteria, low acidity, etc.). Below are two representative papers on dairy and dental health.

Dairy Products and Caries

Dairy Products and Periodontal Disease

Tougher Drunk Driving Laws in Japan

As of September last year, the drunk driving laws in Japan became much stricter, with very little tolerance at all. A blood alcohol level as low as 0.03 can result in a jail term of up to 3 years. Those supplying drunk drivers with vehicles or alcohol, or even those riding as a passenger in the same car as a drunk driver, can be subject to similar penalties (only slightly less severe). Restaurants are taking this new liability seriously, as you might guess, and most now have signs warning people not to drink and drive. I thought this sign was interesting because it looks very Japanese, as a Japanese sake decanter is pictured instead of a glass of beer.

Kotooshu Wins the Summer Sumo Basho

Bulgarian Sumo wrestler Kotooshu became the first European to win a major sumo tournament or basho. It was big news here in Japan and good news for the sumo association, coming after two years of scandal and generally unfavorable publicity.

This has a direct relation to the food industry, because Kotooshu is sponsored by Meiji Dairies Corporation which makes Japan's best selling yogurt brand - Bulgaria Yogurt. The name is interesting enough, but as is written on the package the brand is "Licensed by Bulgaria". This is the only case I know of where a country licenses its name for a commercial product.

If you follow the 2nd link below, you can see Kotooshu's ceremonial belt or Kesho-musubi, which doubles an advertisement for the yogurt.

Bulgaria Yogurt has been the best selling yogurt in Japan for decades, long before Kotooshu came to Japan. The brand image is that of a traditional and healthy yogurt coming from a country known for its yogurt eating traditions and long, healthy life spans. The product was introduced at the 1970 World Expo, around the same time Bulgarians were known for their long life scans. Recent statistics inspire less envy, but the positive image for Bulgaria remains.
Here is Kotooshu's Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotooshu

Here is a link to the Meiji Dairies' Kotooshu webpage: http://www.meijibulgariayogurt.com/koto/index.html

Here is a link to a Bulgaria yogurt commercial featuring Kotooshu (video): http://www.meinyu.jp/fun/cm/product/movie/burugaria_002.wmv

Japan's Food Import Tariffs

There was a very interesting article in the 2008.5.21 issue of Nikkei Shimbun (Japanese edition). It lists the tariffs on the importation of several basic food items.

Polished Rice (コメ、精米)　341 yen per kg (resulting in a 788% tariff at current prices)
Wheat (小麦) 55 yen per kg (252% tariff)
Beans (小豆) 354 yen per kg (402% tariff)
Sugar (粗糖) 71.8 yen per kg (305% tariff)
Butter (バター) 29.8% of price + 985 yen per kg (360% tariff)
Cheese (チーズ) 29.8% of price (29.8% tariff)

It does not take a close analysis of the data to see two things:
1) what food items Japan already produces and wants to protect, or put another way, what items Japan believes it can have a degree of self-sufficiency in,
and
2) why there is no butter on store shelves, but cheese is still easy to find. In the article, it states that Japan has a goal of being 90% self-sufficient in butter. Demand was misjudged several years ago (when such things need to be planned for) and now there is no quick fix. World prices have sky rocketed and to that price an additional 360% is added, which results in it being very difficult to import butter to make up the difference.

Bottled Tap Water

As elsewhere in the world, bottled water has become very popular in Japan. While it is surely better for you than the other choices which amount to nothing more than sugar water, I still have trouble paying so much (usually about 120 yen, 500 ml PET bottle) for something that comes out of the tap for next to nothing.

Here is an interesting offering. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Waterworks is selling bottled tap water at a modest discount. Most 500 ml drinks in PET bottles sell for either 140 or 150 yen. Bottled water sells for around 120 yen. I found this Tokyo bottled tap water on sale in Tokyo Station for 100 yen.

From the label, you can see that they are trying to make a point about the purity of Tokyo tap water - "世界に誇る東京水" and "超高度浄水の水道水". Roughly, "World renowned Tokyo water" and "Ultrahighly pure Tokyo tap water".

Also, in English on the lower edge of the label is written "TOKYO WATER is purified with the advanced water treatment at the Akasa Purification Plant and is bottled without chlorine."

100 ml: sodium 1.87 mg, calcium 2.13 mg, potassium 0.23 mg, magnesium 0.42 mg

100 yen for water is still too much, and the mountain of PET bottles that results is a problem, but it is still better than the other bottled water options.