Japan News Update #43 (3-16 Jan, 2023)

Japan’s food industry trend

Brazil, the world’s largest chicken exporter, is shifting its export market from Japan to China for higher sales prices. On top of this, European and Middle Eastern countries that used to import chicken mainly from Ukraine are now also focusing on Brazil. Due to many years of and the war's impact, people's purchasing power in Japan has declined relative to people based in other countries.

Source: Future world order: Economic tug-of-war / Japan losing ground in competition to buy chicken

The frozen food items available at retail stores are diversifying to high-end products, allowing customers to enjoy gourmet dishes at home. Annual frozen food shipments for home use reached ¥391.9 billion in 2021, the highest since the survey began. Yoshikei Kaihatsu, a food delivery company based in Shizuoka, offers foreign dishes such as feijoada, a Brazilian home-style dish, on its exclusive mail-order site, aiming to win new customers.

Source: Japan's hottest new food trend is frozen solid

In Japan, a business practice called the 'one-third rule' persists throughout the food industry. Under the practice, food makers or wholesalers should deliver products to retailers within the first one-third of the product's shelf-life. Retailers are only allowed to sell products in stores for two-thirds of the time before the expiration date. This unique practice with respect to freshness was created in response to the high requirements regarding freshness of Japanese consumers. However, it is one of the causes of a large amount of food waste. In 2019, since the enactment of the Act on Promotion of Food Loss and Waste Reduction law, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been encouraging food industry management to relax the ‘one-third rule’.

Source: Why reducing food loss is key to a more sustainable future

Breakthrough for the Dutch cuisine

Restaurant landings from overseas, which tended to cease with the outbreak of the new coronavirus, have begun to increase again. Chef Jacob Jan Boerma from the Netherlands, three Michelin-star expertise, launched the Dutch cuisine restaurant “Smaak” in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture. The ingredients are almost exclusively from Japan, and the cuisine has some Japanese elements. Smaak offers fusion cuisine with eclectic flavours that seem well suited to the Yokohama port city’s international history.

Source: Three-star Dutch chef's restaurant lands in Japan; related article

Innovations in Japan’s local and agriculture

In Kagawa Prefecture, industry, academia, and government collaborate to research and industrialize “rare sugar (e.g., allulose)”. Rare sugar attracts demand from overseas food manufacturers such as Mexico, the U.S. (e.g., Ingredion) and Korea as an alternative sweetener. In addition, rare sugar research is expanding beyond food into a diversity of field, including anti-cancer drugs and pesticides.

Source: Japan’s food innovations from local to world

From robots to artificial intelligence and blockchain-based marketing, technological innovation is increasingly being harnessed in Japan to improve farming methods and create a more sustainable industry. For example, Metagri-Labo, a community launched in March 2022, aims to merge agriculture and blockchain technology to increase farming revenues while revitalizing regional areas.

Source: Japan startups team with farmers to put tech to work in agriculture

To curb food waste, NTT Data Kansai, a subsidy of NTT Data, a multinational IT company, has developed a service that predicts the number of customers in the farmers’ market using artificial intelligence, and suggests sales volumes and reasonable prices for each product. It aims to reduce opportunity and food loss by helping producers determine appropriate shipping quantities and prices. The service will be commercialized in April 2023.

Source: AI reduces food waste at farmer’s markets by No. of visitors prediction

Fujitsu Ltd., an electronics manufacturer, has teamed up with Tokai university in Japan to develop the world's first technology to check frozen tuna's freshness using ultrasound and artificial intelligence (AI). In Japan, skilled experts judged Frozen tuna's fattiness and freshness by cutting the tails off and viewing the cross-section. This new technology can grade a frozen tune quality without cutting off the tail.

Source: Fresh find: Japan team develops tech to grade frozen tuna with ultrasound, AI

Bird flu news in Japan

Japan has culled more than 10 million birds at poultry farms this season, hitting a record high, as cases of avian influenza surge across the country. The previous record cull stood at 9.87 million, conducted between November 2020 to March 2021. It is believed that migratory birds caused the latest round of bird flu in Japan.

Source: Record 10 million birds culled in Japan as avian flu spreads; More than 10 million birds culled for bird flu