Japan rice prices hit new high despite gov't countermeasures
Ideas:
With all due respect, despite the Japanese government attempting to increase the supply of rice in the market someone or something is keeping the price high.
Usually whenever the supply of a product or staple increases the price will eventually decrease but that has not happened in this situation as the price of rice has not decreased and might even be increasing.
Most likely in this situation, rice wholesalers or middlemen might be keeping the price high to maximize the profits for as long as they can, and not really thinking about the good of society.
Most it not all agricultural products, such as vegetables, fruits, fish and some meat products are all auctioned off and then the products go to the middlemen and then to the supermarkets.
So the weak link might be in the supply chain related to the middlemen and even maybe some supermarkets too might be keeping the price high to try and maximize profits, despite the Japanese public wanting or needing lower prices.
When the supermarkets and middlemen, who might be keeping the price high begin to see that the majority of supermarkets have decreased the price, then all the supermarkets will do the same to not lose any sales.
An increase of 8 yen might just be an average as maybe some supermarkets might have increased the price even more and some maybe a little less. If rice is bought in large volumes that 8 yen increase could turn into a lot for the average Japanese family.
But then again, to be fair, it might not be the supermarkets only, as maybe it could be the middlemen deciding on the price as supermarkets have to take what is presented to them.
You would think that the Japanese supermarkets would have a conscious and maybe feel a little guilty keeping the price high, if its them, as they see customers everyday and maybe can see the pain or worry on their faces of their customers who have to pay the high prices for rice.
Unfortunately in the market place, such as the rice market, there are those who only think about themselves and not everyone for the good of society, as they too might be operating with very thin profit margins and have no choice but to keep the price high for as long as they can.
The wholesalers and retailers might want to lower the price to help their customers but again because of very thin profit margins they have no choice but to keep the price high as long as they can.
And as they see other retailers begin to finally begin to decrease the price they will do they same so that they won't lose customers or sales.
It's good that more rice will be or has been released into the market, but will it cause rice prices to go down. Maybe yes or maybe no, as with past experience over the past year, prices have not decreased when they should have according to normal supply and demand principles.
It seems rice products might be in sticky price situation, no pun intended, which means when a product is in a sticky price situation, normal supply and demand principles don't work or don't apply to this situation, as something or someone is keeping the price high.
If the supply of rice in 2023 was less than normal or less than expected why wasn't anything done about the supply situation as why it finally manifest itself in the summer of 2024 when there there was an outbreak of decreased supplies that made rice prices skyrocket.
This should have been more rice added to the rice market before the summer of 2024 so that the rice prices could have been normal as much as possible instead its been a constant stress on Japanese families and especially those families with children.
Maybe there was nothing the Japanese government could have done as unfortunately there are always poor growing seasons and poor harvest, but at the same time, maybe they could have prevented supply problem by using more foreign rice and or releasing their government rice supplies much sooner to prevent the shortage of the summer of 2024.
But then there was the potential earthquake warning in the summer of 2024, which caused many Japanese customers to run to the supermarkets and they tried to buy as much rice as possible which made the rice shortage even worse.
Have a nice day!
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