Amidst rising prices, might foodcrime be the next trend?

July 10, 2008
By Ken Worsley

After all the hoopla surrounding food safety and labeling in Japan over the past year, and the subsequent hand-wringing over higher prices, especially of dairy products and grains, it seems just about time for a new trend to come in: Foodcrime.

To set up some background, first we need to keep in mind that wholesale wheat prices have nearly doubled in Japan in the past year. According to data released by the Bank of Japan yesterday, the rising price of wheat and wheat flour imports continue to contribute to Japan’s rising wholesale prices. Products such as noodles and spaghetti, which are made from wheat, have seen consumer price increases over 10% over the past months.

Japan is certainly not slowing down in its importation of wheat. According to figures released by the USDA this morning, the size of Japan’s wheat purchase from the US increased to 84,200 metric tons last month, ranking third behind Nigeria and Chile. This accounts for just over 13% of the wheat exported by the US in that time (on a side note, Japan purchased 33.6% of the corn that the US put up for export sale, though Japan did buy less corn than South Korea).

On the domestic front, a 30% price hike has been approved for wheat sales for the 2009 crop.

back to the story: this morning, the Mainichi reported that 2 tons of flour had been stolen from a wholesale company’s warehouse in Saitama. Although we’re not told if this was wheat flour, or whether it was imported or domestic in origin (which would be more likely), we do know that the flour was valued at 270,000 yen and that it was stolen with the firm’s own truck, which was returned to the warehouse, showing an increase of only 8 kilometers on its odometer.

This is hardly the first time food has been stolen in Japan, but we’re forced to wonder if the current environment of rising prices mixed with the guaranteed rise of prices for next year’s crop won’t lead to an increase in such incidents. If nothing else, more cases of mislabeled food should be expected.

Filed Under Agriculture, Business, Econ Light