CHINO, Japan, Aug. 21—Sacks of rice are disappearing from Japanese retail store shelves as 2023 fall produce distribution dries up amid strong demand from domestic consumers and visitors, sparking concern and panic buying among consumers trying to stock up for natural disasters and and eateries scrambling to secure inventory for business.
Visitors to supermarkets and farmers stores in this city of 55,000 residents Aug. 20 were stunned and expressed worries when they saw empty shelves for 5- and 10-kilogram plastic bags of Japan’s staple cereal that always have been stacked up full.
Signs at many retailers read bluntly: ‘Next arrival is unknown’ and/or ‘One bag per person.’ The store manager of a farmers market Aug. 20 told me, ‘2023 rice (those harvested in the 2023 autumn) which we polished is fully sold. The next installment is August 22, and we don’t know how much we can sell. For the next one (if I miss the purchase), you need to wait for the 2024 produce’ – which is not until late October, he said.
Japan harvested about 6.6 million tons of food-use rice in 2023, while annual consumption is 8 million tons. It has about 1.5 million tons of running stock, meaning there’s enough supply to last until the next harvest if that tonnage is smoothly distributed.
Can consumers be optimistic about 2024 harvest distribution? The jury is out. One thing that has become visible is rice rices are soaring and likely to remain high as the country’s inflation continues to be unabated, running at more than 20 percent per annum to date this year following over than a 30 percent jump in 2023 on a headline inflation basis.
Hoarding by distributors and consumers as well as a pent-up export boom in tandem with increasing over-tourism are suspect behind the tight supply and price rises.
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