Where's the butter?!?

[matsuki]

image.jpg

Come to the BigT, we haz butter...

But it's that poisoned Snow Brand butter.

Cliff's note please ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Brand_Milk_Products
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/0 ... iry-dates/

Wow...

the worst case of food poisoning in Japan

Yet......

A criminal probe into the company led to some senior managers being charged with professional negligence. Two were convicted, and were given suspended sentences.

The company was criticized for failing to recall their product quickly.

Sound familiar? (cough cough TAKATA TAKATA) Must be that unique Japanese business sutaaaaaaairu

[Samurai_Jerk]

I'm still seeing butter shortages at my local super. Not like before but the cheaper bulk stuff is often sold out.

[wagyl]

image.jpg

Come to the BigT, we haz butter...

But it's that poisoned Snow Brand butter.

Cliff's note please ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Brand_Milk_Products
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/0 ... iry-dates/

Wow...

the worst case of food poisoning in Japan

Yet......

A criminal probe into the company led to some senior managers being charged with professional negligence. Two were convicted, and were given suspended sentences.

The company was criticized for failing to recall their product quickly.

Sound familiar? (cough cough TAKATA TAKATA) Must be that unique Japanese business sutaaaaaaairu

I find it hard to believe that you don't remember that: it caused quite a stir at the time. The image of the part time workers throwing unopened cartons of expired milk at the lip of the vat so that they break open, because there wasn't time to open the cartons, so that the milk in the vat could then be repackaged with a new expiry date, has stayed with me to this day. Even though Snow Brand went through a partial rebranding to Megmilk, I still remember.

Of course, go back far enough and it is another major player in the dairy industry with similar misconduct. It is just a guess, but that guess says that any of the remaining major players which haven't been caught up in a scandal (and there might only be one that is so far free from taint) just haven't been caught. Yet.


Back on topic, they are predicting butter shortages again this year.

[matsuki]

2000 was right before I got here and my Japanese was beginners at best....

With all the food poisoning and other bullshit scandals here, are there any private organizations that test what's on offer to the public? With people still worried about radioactive rice, mercury in fish, the shit above and weird ass "diseases" that occur, you'd think public support would be there.

[Mike Oxlong]

Protecting a dairy industry that just doesn't seem to be able to keep up.

Japan braces for another butter shortage

Japan was bracing on Tuesday for a severe butter shortage that threatened to crimp cake-making nationwide, bringing echoes of last year’s dairy dire straits that left supermarket shelves empty.

The Japan Dairy Association is warning that demand for pats will outstrip supply by more than 7,000 tons, prompting the government to ready emergency imports.

Butter shortages last year provoked anguish for shoppers, especially in the run-up to the Christmas cake-baking season, with rationing introduced immediately by any store that had a delivery.

“The government plans to have butter imports on a scale sufficient for stable supply,” said Agriculture Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Tuesday, adding details of the emergency measure will be announced this week.

At the root of the problem is a wider dairy deficit that sees farmers prioritising the raw material for sales of liquid milk.

Herds have been cut over recent decades as demand has slimmed with the aging of the Japanese population.

Last year’s butter imports—7,000 tons in May and a further 3,000 tons in September—were the first time in years that Tokyo had raided foreign dairy markets.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/busi ... r-shortage

[matsuki]

Promising "Emergency imports" of butter yet again while the import tax is 300% and margariiiin is all over the shelves...

Love how the comments are mostly "first world country with a food shortage? More like Best Korea or Soviet Russia...."

[Salty]

Agreed - centrally controlled economy - where construction, agriculture, and fisheries are involved. Vote buying at its best... screw the consumer and tax payer.

[Coligny]

Planification worked so well in China and Soviet Russia... Don't understand why the japs can't get it right...

[Salty]

Anyone know if it is legal to make your own butter? Of course you would need a cow.... We made our own many years ago.... easy to do if you have un-homogenised high cream (fat) content milk.

[wuchan]

Anyone know if it is legal to make your own butter? Of course you would need a cow.... We made our own many years ago.... easy to do if you have un-homogenised high cream (fat) content milk.

100% legal. We took our demon spawn to a dairy farm up in the mountains that has some kind of government scam going where they hold classes on various dairy products in return for "park" funding. The day we went it was butter day. Everyone got a small plastic vial with a bit of fresh cream in it and the instructions were "shake". A few minutes later you had a small lump of butter and some milk. They told everyone that we could do it at home with cream if we wanted.

Problem is cream is fucking expensive in the supermarket.

[matsuki]

Agreed - centrally controlled economy - where construction, agriculture, and fisheries are involved. Vote buying at its best... screw the consumer and tax payer.

Complacent, heiwa blinded populace not/can't going to do shit about it...unless they piss off the seniors

[Russell]

Bureaucratic bungling behind butter shortage

“I often have toast for breakfast, and it’s a problem if there’s no butter,” a 40-ish homemaker tells Friday (June 19). “My son in primary school often complains when I can’t serve it to him.”

These days it’s become common in Japanese supermarkets to see signs posted that read “Butter limited to one item per customer.” The problem first surfaced in 2013, and butter has gradually vanished from store shelves.

For the nation’s confectionery manufacturers, though, it’s becoming a matter of life and death.

“To make shortbread, we use about 250 kilograms of butter a month,” says Kazufumi Hondo, president of Hokkaido-based confectioner Paris 16e. “The year before last, we sold a 450 gram loaf for 480 yen. Now it’s 580 yen. To make up for the butter shortfall, from last year we began producing our own from dairy cream.”

What’s behind the butter shortage? Friday blames it on the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and a group called the Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation　(Nochiku Sangyo Shinko Kiko), which is largely made up of “amakudari”—retired bureaucrats on their second careers—which has been working at expanding certain vested interests.

“Three ‘inane plans” being pushed by the Agriculture Ministry have caused the supply and demand to collapse,” says Yoshihiro Asakawa, a journalist covering agribusiness.

The first of the three “inane plans” was the subsidy system for processed dairy products, which at the moment is only given to producers in Hokkaido. Dairy farmers receive a 12.9 yen subsidy for each kilogram of raw milk used in the making of butter. As Hokkaido produces 80% of Japan’s butter, Asakawa explains, the policy has led to an over-concentration in one part of the country. So if Hokkaido dairy production is even slightly destabilized, it will result in a drop in butter production.

The second problem, according to Asakawa, stems from the subsidies for cheese. As Japan keeps importing more cheese from abroad, the ministry has shown stubborn determination to develop its domestic industry, offering a subsidy of 15.53 yen per kilogram of raw milk used in the making of cheese. And in addition, half the cost of building production plants is covered by government subsidies.

The Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation has been encouraging production of cheese to the tune of 31 billion yen in government subsidies.　After the butter shortage became severe last year, the bureaucrats tried to backtrack and persuade the cheese makers to shift their raw materials to address the butter shortfall, but other bureaucrats told them not to bother, claiming if consumers could get their hands on more butter they’d hoard it.

As opposed to production of 64,800 tons of butter this year, total demand is expected to reach 74,700 tons, leaving the shortfall to be made up by imports. But then the Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation—which is the sole entity authorized to import butter—stepped in with “inane plan” number 3. This involves piling an additional markup on top of the existing 35% import duty (which gets tacked on to imports above 600 tons per year). The end result is a fourfold rise in the retail price of a kilogram of butter, from about 500 yen to 2,000 yen. Thus for all intents and purposes pricing it out of the market.

Friday notes that of the 10 directors of the Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation, five are former Agriculture Ministry bureaucrats, and one is an “old boy” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The corporation’s director pulls in a cozy annual salary of around 16.72 million yen. Enough, the magazine notes bitterly, to let him live off the fat of the land, while the hoi polloi are obliged to make do with less… and less.

Link

That answers my question where all that fat not used for butter goes to: cheese!

I suppose that Japanese cheese then should be pretty cheap. But even if it is, I still prefer my Gouda or Boursin...

[wagyl]

I'm fairly sure I have posted this here before: butter is made from cream. Very few cheeses are made from cream -- marscapone is the most well known example. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... oducts.svg It is not the fat which is going to cheese, it is the milk (raw material for the cream) which is being diverted by subsidies.

Also, one should not assume that because some production is being subsidised, that the final product should be cheap. Time to wake up from that dream world, Russell!

[Wage Slave]

Cheap? I wish. And it's pretty poor quality to boot. Some of the packs designed to bulk up tiny amounts of Hokkaido Cheddar look like they may contain some decent cheese but it's not conscionable to pay that much for it.

This is the stuff and it won't break the bank either:



I like it so much I bought shares in the company that makes it.

[Russell]

I'm fairly sure I have posted this here before: butter is made from cream. Very few cheeses are made from cream -- marscapone is the most well known example. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... oducts.svg It is not the fat which is going to cheese, it is the milk (raw material for the cream) which is being diverted by subsidies.

Also, one should not assume that because some production is being subsidised, that the final product should be cheap. Time to wake up from that dream world, Russell!

So, couldn't they then use the fat from the milk for butter and the rest for the cheese?

In the end it seems it's the fat that counts.

Regarding the price of Japanese cheese, I never checked. Have tasted it once, and that was enough to ignore the stuff for the rest of my life.

[wagyl]

So, couldn't they then use the fat from the milk for butter and the rest for the cheese?

In the end it seems it's the fat that counts.

Russell if you examine the chart of processes for various dairy products, you will see what I am saying. It also lists out the range of fat content for the various products. Certainly, there is fat content in cheeses, with the possible exception of the whey cheeses like ricotta or its caramelised relative brunost. You don't make cheese out of skim milk, as you correctly point out. But there are people (me included) who would present an argument that milk with fat is the only product rightly called milk, and that skim milk deserves a category of its own (or better, banishment to the fiery depths of Hell).

That said, if you tried to make butter out of milk which has been homogenised, you would be there forever. Raw milk, let stand so the the cream separates out, then churn the cream. Easier than making Greek yoghurt!

(I never dreamed that I would be explaining cheese to a Dutchman when I signed up here)

[Russell]

So, couldn't they then use the fat from the milk for butter and the rest for the cheese?

In the end it seems it's the fat that counts.

Russell if you examine the chart of processes for various dairy products, you will see what I am saying. It also lists out the range of fat content for the various products. Certainly, there is fat content in cheeses, with the possible exception of the whey cheeses like ricotta or its caramelised relative brunost. You don't make cheese out of skim milk, as you correctly point out. But there are people (me included) who would present an argument that milk with fat is the only product rightly called milk, and that skim milk deserves a category of its own (or better, banishment to the fiery depths of Hell).

That said, if you tried to make butter out of milk which has been homogenised, you would be there forever. Raw milk, let stand so the the cream separates out, then churn the cream. Easier than making Greek yoghurt!

(I never dreamed that I would be explaining cheese to a Dutchman when I signed up here)

Actually, you did explain that before in a post in which you stated that one needs raw milk to make cheese.

My point is that if you process this milk differently, you get butter.

So, in a sense, it is either butter or cheese that you can get from milk. The article I quoted appears to say the same.

But anyways, yep, you are more up to date with cheese making than this typical Dutchman.

[matsuki]

What’s behind the butter shortage? Friday blames it on the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and a group called the Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation　(Nochiku Sangyo Shinko Kiko), which is largely made up of “amakudari”—retired bureaucrats on their second careers—which has been working at expanding certain vested interests.

Japaneeeeeeze sutairu!

[Russell]

Butter supplies pick up — for now

The supply of domestic butter in fiscal 2015 is likely to surpass demand, the Japan Dairy Association (J-milk) has announced, saying household butter will probably not disappear from tables nationwide as it did in late 2014.

According to J-milk’s forecast, the production volume of butter in fiscal 2015 will be 63,300 tons, up 2.7 percent from the previous fiscal year. If this is combined with 12,800 tons imported through state trade, supply is expected to exceed the demand for 74,800 tons by 1,300 tons.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry decided in May to import 10,000 tons of butter in response to the J-milk’s forecast that supply would fall 9,900 tons short of demand. The latest forecast indicates that shortage will be averted with the help of the emergency imports.

An atmosphere of scarcity remains, however, as a number of supermarkets are limiting the purchase of butter to one pack per customer. The retail price of 200 grams of butter has also stayed high at around the ¥430 level, up about 6 percent from the previous year.

The production volume of domestic raw milk keeps declining, and it is unlikely that the sense of a butter shortage will be dispelled anytime soon. The volume of raw milk peaked in 1996 at 8.65 million tons, then fell by more than 1 million tons to 7.33 million tons in 2014.

Raw milk is processed for drinking on a preferential basis, with butter on the back burner because it keeps well.

“The production volume of butter won’t get back to normal unless raw milk supplies recover,” according to a member of a major dairy products maker.

The number of cattle farmers has fallen due to fierce business conditions such as the increasing cost of imported feed triggered by the weakened yen. To stop farms from going out of business, the agricultural ministry’s commission will compile a guideline sometime this year to review the concept of raw milk trading.

However, increasing transaction prices just to protect farmers’ profits is highly likely to result in a hike in retail prices. In light of the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, it is essential to strengthen the production base.

Link

Dunno what they mean with the last sentence. Wouldn't it be easier to just import cheap butter?

[yanpa]

That report reminds me of the translations we used to produce at university.

Anyway, butter shortage? Not at Chez Yanpa.

i-cant-believe-theres-no-butter.jpg

[Takechanpoo]

wtf stick to butter so much?
i guess absorbing too much saturated fatty acid is the reason you gaijins smells like cows butt.

btw
my favorite since being a little kid

4902410209744_s.jpg

[Coligny]

Dood, part of my family in Verdun ( well, St Mihiel to be precise) had cows.
And I can guarante you that none of us never put its nose even remotely close to a cow's bunghole and could nott tell the smell from a rotten pig.

If you know enough of that smell to use it as a comparison... You either have worse fetish than all of us combined or you had a very traumatic childhood...

[Salty]

I think he has been sniffing his GF....

[BigInJapan]

I think he has been sniffing his GF....

GF? You mean his right hand...

[Coligny]

I think he has been sniffing his GF....

GF? You mean his right hand...

So much horror never to be unseen...

image.jpg

[Russell]

wtf stick to butter so much?

Because the alternative, trans fat, is pretty bad for your health.

But apparently the authorities in Japan did not figure that out yet...

U.S. trans fat ban prompts call for better Japan labeling

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s move last month to phase out artificial trans fats over three years from all processed foods has made few ripples in Japan, where there are currently no regulations on the oil.

Health and food safety authorities here said the U.S. move will not affect policies in Japan, since the nation’s average intake of trans fats — contained in everything from margarine to frozen pizzas to cookies — are far smaller than in the U.S. and the threshold set by the World Health Organization.

But some experts have criticized the government’s stance, saying Japan should at least start requiring food manufacturers to display the amount of trans fats on product packages.

Here are some questions and answers on issues surrounding trans fats.

What are trans fats and why is the U.S. banning them?

Trans fats are fatty acids, of which there are basically two types: those naturally found in foods such as beef, and those artificially reformulated from vegetable oil. In the food industry, hydrogen is added to vegetable oil to make it more solid and spreadable. Partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) are known to prolong the shelf life of foods and maintain their flavor stability.

The U.S. regulators banned only the PHOs, which have been found to cause heart disease and fatal heart attacks in thousands of Americans every year. PHOs are not “generally recognized as safe,” the FDA says.

The Institute of Medicine has previously determined that no level of PHOs is safe for consumption.

What are the most risky foods?

According to a risk assessment report on trans fats released by the Food Safety Commission of Japan (FSC) in March 2012, margarine, shortening oil, cookies and pies are among the foods containing high levels of trans fats, though amounts vary from product to product.

Levels of the oils in retail margarine products, for example, ranged from 0.9 grams to 12.3 grams per 100 grams, while those for shortening oil ranged from 1.2 grams to 13.6 grams per 100 grams.

Why is Japan not regulating the substance?

Health ministry officials say the levels of intake among average Japanese are far below the safety levels set by the WHO, which recommends that people limit their intake to 1 percent of total calories consumed, or less than 2 grams of trans fat per day.

“Currently, the average consumption of trans fats in Japan is sufficiently lower than the level recommended by the WHO,” health ministry official Tsuyoshi Arai said. “We consider the health effect (of trans fat) on the current Japanese diet is miniscule. We don’t plan on setting specific intake limits in Japan.”

The same 2012 FSC report also says the average current intake among Japanese was only 0.3 percent of all calories consumed in 2004. By age groups, however, children were found to eat more foods containing trans fats, with boys aged 1-6 consuming 0.47 percent, and girls in the same age bracket consuming 0.46 percent.

By comparison, another report compiled by the FSC in 2010 found the average amount consumed in the U.S. in 2005-2006 was 5.3 grams a day, or 2.6 percent of total calories consumed, while people in European countries also consumed high amounts, with their daily intake of trans fat ranging from 1 percent to 2 percent in 2005-2006.

Given the current intake levels, Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency, which is in charge of food labeling, said it is not necessary to force food manufacturers to show the amount of trans fat on their product labels. Requiring product manufacturers to include the information means they will have to pay to have the amount of trans fat analyzed, which could end up pushing up product prices, said Toshitaka Masuda, an official at the agency’s food labeling division.

What about people who like fatty foods?

Some people may be consuming trans fats more than the safety levels.

The 2012 FSC report cites a 2008 study in Japan covering the diet of 25 female students aged around 20 for a week.

While the sample size was small and the duration of the study short, it showed that three of the 25 students consumed about 3 grams of trans fat per day, exceeding the recommended amounts of less than 2 grams.

A study in 2009 covering 1,136 female students aged 18-22 showed their trans fat intake was estimated to be 0.9 percent of total calories consumed, with PHOs accounting for 77 percent of the consumed amount.

Masuda of the consumer agency said that although it’s not mandatory, the agency is asking firms to voluntarily publicize the amount of trans fats contained in their foods.

In other words, those people can go fuck themselves.

It is also important, Masuda said, to urge people to have a “balanced” diet, instead of just targeting trans fats, which are among a group of unsaturated fats.

“If we just target unsaturated fat, food producers might replace that with saturated fat,” Masuda said, noting that excessive consumption of saturated fat is just as harmful to people’s health.

Saturated fats are found in such products as butter, cheese, red meat and other animal-based foods and are known to raise “bad” cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease.

The guy needs to read up.

As for the alleged increase in risk of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease due to saturated fat intake, the link isn't there or is inconclusive at best. A study conducted on the Japanese population showed that the risk of stroke due to saturated fat intake actually decreased while the risk of cardiovascular disease was unaffected.

Are there calls for regulations?

Koichi Tateishi, a member of the FSC’s food labeling committee, which issued the March 2012 risk assessment report, remains unconvinced that the government thoroughly researched the issue. Tateishi, head of the food quality assurance division at Zen-Noh (the National Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Associations), rebuffed the cost argument, saying many food manufacturers have conducted trans fat analysis in order to export their products.

He cited the example of one chocolate product sold by a Japan-based confectionery maker that contains 3 grams of trans fat per box — more than the daily intake limit. The amount is displayed on their product packages sold in North America and many countries in Southeast Asia, but not in Japan. “It’s wrong not to require disclosure of trans fat information (by) citing low levels of consumption in Japan, when countries such as China and South Korea, whose intake levels are lower than in Japan, have moved to mandatory disclosure,” he said.

What should consumers do?

Terue Kawabata, professor of nutrition at Kagawa Nutrition University in Saitama Prefecture, said that with few companies disclosing information on trans fats in their products, the best consumers can do at the moment is to stay away from processed foods, especially fatty ones.

Since the amount contained varies greatly from brand to brand even within the same product category, avoiding repeated purchases of the same processed food products will dilute the risk, she added. “If you keep changing the brands, the risk of you coming across products with exceptionally high levels of trans fats will be lower,” she said.

Link

The last sentence keeps me scratching my head. It belongs in the category that if you smile nuclear radiation will not affect you.

[wagyl]

Russell, is the only alternative to butter transfats?

Maybe that is a bit of a trick question, because my alternative to butter for spreading is spreading nothing at all, and butter for cooking is olive oil. Admittedly, i am not making my own danish pastries with that....

[Russell]

Russell, is the only alternative to butter transfats?

Maybe that is a bit of a trick question, because my alternative to butter for spreading is spreading nothing at all, and butter for cooking is olive oil. Admittedly, i am not making my own danish pastries with that....

Of course not, there are also unsaturated fats, which are better than trans fats.

But I like the taste of butter on my bread. And I can't help liking cheese.

It is just good to know that saturated fats are not as unhealthy as always has been claimed.

[Samurai_Jerk]

More important that whether or not transfats are bad for you is the fact that margarine tastes fucking horrible. Of course I can't expect a someone like Takechan to understand the difference between margarine and butter with his unsophisticated Japanese palate. The Japanese just don't understand Western food.

[matsuki]

(Most) Japanese just don't understand Western food.

Pretty much THIS...I guess without effort, it can't be helped...but frozen/processed/fast food versions they serve here can be pretty horrible. Look at what Take posted....butter rolls? Shitty bread stuffed with margarine?