Agricultural market: American rice dominates the Japanese market

Japanese retailers are turning to California-grown Calrose rice to replace Japanese rice, which is now expensive and scarce.

Rice stored in a warehouse in Saitama, Japan (Photo: Kyodo/VNA)

The Aeon supermarket chain held a Calrose rice tasting event at the US Embassy in Tokyo and announced that it will start selling the rice on June 6th.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan, George Glass, described this as a historic milestone as Japan's largest supermarket chain began selling American Calrose rice nationwide.

A 4kg bag of Calrose rice costs 2,894 yen (US$19.80), about 15% cheaper than Japanese rice. The average price of a 5kg bag of Japanese rice in the week ending April 28 was 4,214 yen.

Calrose rice is a long-grain rice that is not as sticky as Japanese rice, making it suitable for dishes such as fried rice or risotto.

Aeon's Vice President, Mitsuko Tsuchiya, stated that Aeon aims to diversify customer choices while still prioritizing domestically produced rice to ensure food security.

Last month, Aeon sold a blend of Japanese and American rice under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) "minimum access" agreement, which allows Japan to import certain types of foreign rice duty-free. However, Calrose rice will be imported outside of this agreement, and Aeon will be subject to a tax of 341 yen/kg.

The trend of using imported rice is increasing. Retail chain Ito Yokado sold California-grown rice at some of its stores from February to April.

A Tokyo rice shop employee said that Calrose rice has a certain stickiness and is not much different from Japanese rice if you know how to cook it. According to this employee, many people still don't understand the true flavor of Calrose rice, but in fact, many Japanese restaurants use it.

Japanese rice prices have risen sharply since last year, forcing the government to auction off its rice reserves. However, prices are still double those of the previous year.

According to VNA

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