News from Nippon

Japanese consumers are making all forms count. the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service reports. Rising consumption of vegetable juice at the expense of fresh vegetables is one of the food trends reported in a recent post from Japan.
From the FAS

Popular bottle/pack drink sizes have shifted to smaller sizes. For example, the 500 ml. tea bottle was redesigned to 460 ml. and the 1 l. milk pack to 700 ml. to meet consumers’ needs for easy-to-carry and quick-to-finish drinks. (a. 2/1)
More variations of vegetable juice are produced. According to the survey conducted by Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW), the daily intake of vegetables including vegetable juice of Japanese people in 2004 decreased by 8% for the past 5 years. On the contrary, the demand for vegetable juice is increasing because of the consumers’ needs for supplementing the lack of vegetables. The market size in 2006 is said to be 185 billion yen, which is 1.5 times the level of 2003. There is no definition of “vegetable juice”, and it is categorized as any drink containing vegetable juice. Vegetable juice with fruit juice and added with lactic acid sold well because of the sweet taste.
Domestic citrus prices are rising sharply due to high demand and the lack of imported citrus. The retail prices are 10-20% higher than last year.
Supermarkets are trying to increase sales of California citrus by selling smaller sized fruit and/or packing in smaller sized bags rather than increasing prices to avoid losing customer interest.