A new year is coming, but inflation isn’t going anywhere. After recent news about price hikes for Uniqlo products, Family Mart’s fried chicken and even train fares, the next bout of increases will hit more than 7,000 food products in early 2023.
According to a survey (in Japanese only) by market research firm Teikoku Databank, 7,152 food products will increase in price between January and April 2023. Some increases will be as much as 50 percent, while the average hike is 18 percent.
Most of the increases will hit processed food items such as frozen products and canned goods. Soft drinks and alcohol are also set for a bump in price through the first few months of 2023.
Some of the price hikes will come in the form of products being reduced in size but still selling for the same price. According to Jiji Press, Yamazaki Baking will reduce the number of buns from five to four in its mini bread range, and KitKat Mini packs will go from 13 to 12 bars.
There are several reasons for the price hikes, including a weak yen, more expensive raw materials and rising logistics costs.
Sorry, I can’t post a link to the details of the products, as any link gets your post removed on this sub. You can try googling for it.
14 comments
Yes, inflation will be going up. I was looking into price increases a few months ago because I needed to raise the price on our product. What I found was there were a number of companies that announced the increase months in advance. So you’ll see a lot of these increases take place in Jan and then some in April when the fiscal year starts.
Inflation and especially shrinkflation are some of worst things in life. The amounts always get smaller but never get bigger again in the future :/
>Some of the price hikes will come in the form of products being reduced in size but still selling for the same price. According to Jiji Press, Yamazaki Baking will reduce the number of buns from five to four in its mini bread range, and KitKat Mini packs will go from 13 to 12 bars.
As someone on here pointed out recently, a lot of products have already shrunk, and now the price will go up. Nasty.
First Meiji Super Cup ice cream and now it’s going to happen with Coolish too (I’m still going to buy it).
Then that wanker is also thinking about increasing consumption tax too, right?
> any link gets your post removed on this sub
…and then it comes back after the admins have checked it? Usually in 30 minutes? At least my comments with links.
Please god no, things have already gotten so much more expensive in the last couple of years. I keep getting minuscule raises on my hourly salary but at this point it doesn’t mean anything because the price of everything keeps going up as well lmao
This sucks. I go to two supermarkets regularly, one every couple of weeks to stock up on meat, cleaning products, coffee etc. and the other every couple of days for perishable consumables e.g. eggs, milk, some vegetables etc.
The first one I’ve seen my average shop go from 4-5K to 6-7K. Second one has gone from ~2K to 3K+.
These are not trivial increases when you’re paying that extra week after week.
It’s not fair that pay doesn’t go up either with inflation. It should, but management are dragging their feet about it so who knows when it would appear on the paycheck if it even happens…
I don’t want to scare people the day after Christmas, arguably the most consumerist day in the year, but the “age of abundance” is ending.
The only place that’s still somewhat cheap are veggies from the farmer’s market, since they’re not transported far and not much processed afterward. Though I doubt they’ll stay cheap for long since they also depend on fertilizers to produce.
So, regardless what your situation is, the cheapest way to eat is still cook for yourself, eat more local veggies, reduce imported food.
Might be a dumb question but let’s say, if the situation ever gets better a the yen grow stronger, are prices likely to go back to what they were ? Or will they stay ? Didn’t inflation happen in the 80’s as well ? How did it go after that ?
Sorry I’m not economically knowledgeable, just want to know if this will eventually get better or if ii only goes downward from now on
The government happily watching by doesn’t seem to grasp that companies are never going to increase wages. Japan has been no-inflation for aeons, you can’t just throw the poor and low income to the dogs.
Well there goes my personal entertainment/shopping/hobby budget since I’ll have to spend more on food now.
What can we do?
My favorite shrinkflation tactic is having “Now with 50% less calories!” and the product is just 50% smaller.