Japan Rice Prices: Updated April 26, 2025.

Rice prices in Japan continue to rise for 15 weeks in row despite release of gov't reserves

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250422/p2a/00m/0bu/008000c

Ideas:

There is just no good reason for rice prices to continue to increase after 15  weeks of the Japanese government releasing rice to improve rice supplies and drive down the costs of rice in the market.

There is got to be a breakdown somewhere in the market or supply chain that is causing prices to continue to remain high for Japanese households.

Most likely middlemen and or supermarkets are continuing to keep the price high as long as they can to get as much profit as they can at the peril of the Japanese consumer.

The Japanese government, for the good of society, needs to put price controls or limits on the price of rice to help the average Japanese household.

There is something in the system that is not right here as supplies should begin to get back to normal and something needs to be done to make sure supplies can be normal in the supermarkets again.

If adequate supplies have not reached store shelves, then the government needs to step up it monitoring of the supply of rice and find out what is really going on.

It sounds like, again, there is a breakdown in the supply chain as for some reason, the rice released by the Japanese government is not getting into the hands of the supermarkets for the good of society.

Again, there is something really wrong with this, as only 0.3% of released rice has reached supermarkets, as what has happened to the rest of the rice or where is the rest of the rice that was released.

It looks like maybe the wholesalers are trying to control the rice market for their own personal gain at the peril of both Japanese households and Japanese supermarkets. 

If this is just a slow moving supply chain situation, the Japanese government should step and find ways to improve the movement of the supply chains for the good of Japanese society.

The excuses given are not very good as using the busy end-of-fiscal year period is not a good excuse, as the market doesn't stop for end of year periods, and the same for using the shortage of trucks to move the rice and again, a shortage of trucks doesn't make the market stop and wait for more trucks and the same excuse about time required to polish large quantities of brown rices is again not a valid excuse when households are depending on the rice to live on.

This seems to be a major supply chain challenge as how many tons of released rice does it take for the market to get back to some kind of normalcy. Again something is not right with the Japanese rice market as there should never have happened in the first place.

And what happens in the summer if rice prices are not suppressed and continue to increase. Is the Japanese government going to release more rice. Are they going to investigate what is happening.

And then there is the idea of foreign rice in Japan. How many tons of foreign rice as been brought into Japan to help with the supply situation and is the foreign rice available in the Japanese supermarkets for Japanese households to buy.

Unfortunately, in a market system, everyone looks out for their own good. The rice growers look out for their own good.The middlemen look out for their own good. The supermarkets look out for their own good, and of course at the end of the supply chain the consumers too look out for their own good.

And the consumers get the short end of the stick as everyone before them just increases the price for their own good and when it gets to the consumer they have to pay a lot more that what was needed to grow the rice. And of course along the way, those in the supply chain take advantage of their position and just increase the price without thinking about the final retail customer at the end of the supply chain.

Have a nice day!