Japanese get creative to fight soaring food prices
TOKYO—Japanese homemaker Kirina Mochizuki has always regarded the “okonomiyaki” savory pancakes as the ultimate comfort food—simple, satisfying and cheap.
But these days, it’s a struggle to get the dish—a favorite among Hiroshima natives like herself. With the price of cabbage, a key ingredient, tripling recently, Mochizuki makes daily trips to the supermarket in search of discounted produce or resorts to using dried seaweed.
“I never imagined that okonomiyaki would become a delicacy,” the mother-of-two said, adding she had also taken to re-growing leek in a glass of water using the usually discarded root base.
Surge in rice, veg prices
Many consumers are looking for creative solutions with inflation taking hold in Japan after a generation of stagnant prices.
Cheap “furikake”, or dried condiments sprinkled on rice, are being used as a substitute for other dishes on the dinner table. Sales last year are expected to have reached a record high, according to research firm Fuji Keizai.
The Japanese have also been eating less agricultural products as their prices increase. The average intake of vegetables among adults fell to an all-time low in November, according to the most recent government data.
The price of a head of cabbage reaching 1,000 yen ($6.43) in Tokyo—roughly equivalent to an hourly wage—had already made headlines even before Friday’s data, and the central bank noted last week that rice would probably stay expensive until the spring of 2026.
Wholesale rice prices surged 60 percent in December from the same period a year earlier.
In a first, the farm ministry is considering drawing up new rules to allow the government to sell stockpiled rice to agricultural cooperatives with the aim of bringing down retail prices.
‘Home gardening’
For YouTuber Kazuki Nakata, the recent price trends have proved to be a boon.
Having started indoor farming at home as a hobby during the pandemic, the 37-year-old now has nearly 90,000 subscribers eager to learn how to stretch out store-bought vegetables and grow new ones in containers of water, without soil.
“I’ve seen 4,500 new followers in the past two weeks,” he told Reuters at his home in Kawasaki, outside Tokyo.
Nakata quit his job at an electronics retailer in 2023 to focus on the 47 types of vegetables he currently grows all over his house. Everything from shiso leaves, onions and daikon radish thrive in empty plastic bottles, beer cans and even the basket of his bicycle.
Growing vegetables at home isn’t without its challenges.
Sacrifices pay off
Nakata’s family has had to sleep without air conditioning on sweltering summer nights, and his wife complains that she can’t breastfeed her newborn in the living room because the curtains need to be open to ensure the leafy greens get their sunlight.
Still, the sacrifices have paid off, Nakata says. He recently succeeded in cultivating a robust patch of cabbage leaves in a kitchen bowl using the inedible core and liquid fertilizers—the subject of his next video on YouTube.
“Home gardening has really helped us slash our spending on food, so I want to share my findings,” he said.
