Region Specific Marketing

Many people new to Japan are often surprised that on one hand while menus across the country look pretty similar, there certainly are styles and seasonings that vary from region to region.

Almost everyone is familiar with the "omiyage" which are supposed to represent what is "famous" from a specific area, and which are usually food and packaged in a way to be made convenient for the obligatory present to co-workers upon return from a vacation. These "famous products" from various regions usually have historical basis, but a lot of hype is required to keep them going.

Another regional variation most people are familiar with are items like ramen or okonomiyaki which differ by region - Sapporo ramen, Osaka okonomiyaki, etc.

Most food companies on the other hand are faced with more subtle variations which can make or break a product. Many products are limited to Eastern or Western Japan simply do to their appeal in one of those areas.

Major, nation-wide food companies often introduce new products in just one regional market 1) because that area was found most promising in consumer research, 2) in order to evaluate a product in a test market with specific characteristics (Shizuoka is known for being somewhere between Osaka and Tokyo in its preferences and is thus the preferred test market), or 3) with no intention of going nation-wide (usually these are seasonal and are marketed to make the people of that region feel special - people in other regions cannot buy the product).

I am not sure which of the above applies to the new mushroom burger from Mos Burger, but it is only being introduced in Western Japan. It is said to have an Autumnal flavor. Announcements like this are hardly rare, but they are interesting to follow up on. Chances are those of us in Eastern Japan will not get a chance to buy this mushroom burger even though there are Mos Burgers on almost every other corner.

High Food Prices: CVS and Restaurants

It is interesting that high food prices effects convenience stores (CVS) and restaurants differently. High prices hurt restaurants and the empty tables you might have noticed attest to that. If you still are not convinced, Denny's has just announced that it will be reducing some prices which is always a sign of poor sales.

At the same time, all CVS chains are reporting around 11 percent increased sales over last year. Prices at CVS are not cheap, but they are cheaper than at restaurants. People appear to be making that calculation.

Asahi's Imitation Milk

Asahi is introducing a nutrition drink (350 ml PET bottle) which is low calorie and contains no fat, but has the same calcium as 200 ml of milk. The packaging is designed to remind you of milk. Just having the same amount of calcium in a drink is no guarantee that the same amount will be absorbed by the body, and 157 yen is expensive for a 350 ml bottle. That is the same price as most 500 ml PET bottle drinks.

It does have fewer calories than milk, but I would rather pay 100 or 110 yen for 200 ml of milk.

Service Area Food

Japanese have long had ekiben (special boxed lunches only sold at certain train stations). The same way of thinking goes into the special foods only available at certain service areas along Japanese highways. Here is an article that summarizes some of the best things to eat at various service areas. Interestingly, this is one of the most popular articles, more than two weeks after it was posted.

Packaging: Natto and Coffee

Packaging can seem very unimportant compared with what is inside, superior packaging can make or break a product. Visual design can make products stand out from the crowd, but functional design can also make products much more desirable.

Here are two examples from this week's news of new packaging.

Mitsukan, a major natto maker in Japan, introduced new packaging which allows for inclusion of the soy sauce in a same container and not in a separate plastic package. This saves time and helps avoid getting your hands or the table dirty (problems cited by customers).

Nescafe, is introducing new packaging for coffee refills which allow you to directly refill a jar of coffee without cutting open an aluminum refill bag (I didn't realize this was a problem). More interesting benefits include reduced loss of volatile aroma compounds during refilling (that sounds important as most of the flavor compounds are volatile) and this packaging reduces the amount of aluminum used by 30%, thus reducing the carbon footprint.

Seven Eleven and Katsuo

There are two articles about Seven Eleven and katsuo (bonito) containing products.

In one, Seven Eleven will be introducing a new selection of katsuo containing foods, which contain katsuo which have not been caught using net fishing off the coast of Ibaragi Prefecture - this is said to reduce scarring. Katsuo shavings are frequently used in Japanese cooking.

In the other, new flavoring including katsuo is announced for Seven Eleven oden. The oden in the picture really does look good, doesn't it?

Kimchi Mayonnaise Ramen

Nissin will be introducing a kimchi mayonnaise cup ramen next month. I am not really sure if this sounds good or terrible.

Beer Sales by Category

There was an interesting graph in yesterday's The Japan Food Journal. The exact numbers were not given, but you can eye the graph and come pretty close. The graph was a monthly measure of beer sales by category (beer, happoshu, 3rd category) compared with the sales in the previous year.

Two factors are clear:
1) 3rd category beer is what is carrying the market while beer sales have suffered big setbacks. This is likely do to the large price differences which have been discussed in this blog before.
and
2) there appears to be an unexpected boom in beer sales. 3rd category beer sales in July were up 40% over last year, happoshu 3% and beer 2%. The likely reason for this is the unusually hot summer we are having.

Arable Land in Japan

Continuing with the same article I have mentioned the past two days, there are some interesting numbers of land utilization in Japan. The numbers below are for the years 1985, 1995 and 2005.

Percentage of Arable Land Utilized (not sure how you go over 100%)
105.1% 97.7% 93.4%

Hectares of Farm Land Abandoned to Other Uses (in thousands)
135 244 386

Most of the other numbers in the report are less interesting as they deal with the case Japan is trying to make about Japanese consumers preferring Japanese produced food.

Food Self-Sufficiency 2

The numbers I mentioned yesterday were based on calories by the way. An article on the government report was published in The Japan Food Journal (Japanese) on 2008.07.18.

Some more interesting numbers from the same article are the following, concerning Japanese grain imports (how much and from where).

Wheat (148.9 billion yen)
　America 53.8%, Canada 24.2%, Australia 21.9%
Soy (149.1 billion yen)
　America 76.5%, Canada 9.2%, Brazil 8.1%, China 6.2%
Corn (300.8 billion yen)
　America 96.3%, China 2.8%