Where is the flour?

[Russell]

Flour products sell online for outrageous prices in Japan

As recommendations to stay home and avoid going out continue in order to help stave off the spread of coronavirus, more and more people are eating at home and taking up hobbies like cooking and baking to pass the time. As a result, the demand for basic ingredients like flour has gone up as increasing numbers of home chefs are buying it to cook with, which has caused the stock of flour products in some supermarkets to run dry.

In the wake of stores selling out, some cunning citizens have turned entrepreneur and taken it upon themselves to resupply the flour market–by reselling flour products at exorbitant prices. On Japanese e-commerce site Mercari, sellers are typically offering flour, pancake mix, okonimiyaki mix, takoyaki mix, and other flour-based batter mixes at two to three times their normal price, and sometimes much more. One seller was even selling one-kilogram bags of bread flour for as much as 1,980 yen each (though those specific listings have since been removed.)

The Japanese government, however, wants its citizens to know that there is no production shortage of flour. The minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, Taku Eto, called the price gouging “extremely outrageous” at a cabinet meeting held on May 1 and expressed concerns that resellers will spark panic buying in other citizens, who, upon seeing the flour for sale online, may come to the conclusion that there is a shortage. “If this reselling continues, the ministry will have to take action,” he said.

Both Eto and the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who held a press conference after the cabinet meeting, encouraged citizens not to panic buy. “We’re aware of the low stock of flour products in some stores,” Suga said. “Currently we have a domestic stockpile of the raw materials needed to make flour, so there is no shortage. Mills were asked to continue working in full production even over the Golden Week holidays, so please make your purchases calmly and rationally.”

As for the administrators of apps like Mercari, they’re doing their own part to combat price-gouging sellers. Mercari itself has released a statement saying that they noticed an increase in flour products listed on its website, but not a significant change in the price of flour. Nevertheless, they are putting efforts into removing overpriced listings, and have also banned the sale of medical equipment such as masks, since selling them at high prices became a major problem in the initial panic, and has since become illegal.

So though there is currently a minor shortage of flour products in stores in Japan, it’s not a permanent shortage, and supermarkets should restock their flour products soon.

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[matsuki]

Let's price gouging!!

[yanpa]

Flour is the new toilet paper.

[Taro Toporific]

Flour is the new toilet paper.

Costco Kawasaki has† all the flour you ever wanted...in 5kg and 20kg bags. It's the yeast that is the problem (although self-raising flour is available and you always use live, unsweetened, tangy yogurt as sourdough "yeast" ).

† Costco Kawasaki also had toilet paper, boxes of cheap masks, plenty of butter when I went there last Sunday.

[matsuki]

I had just bought some at Costco before all this silliness began. With how small inventories are for most markets here, this is just going to keep happening again and again.

I think I know what Colgny is making with his...

colignyessa.jpg

[canman]

Where is the butter? Didn't I just hear milk producers lamenting that with no school lunches they had no body to buy their milk and they were having to throw it away. Now that there is a baking spree going on, and everybody is using butter, there is no damn butter and the prices are sky high if you can find any! That pisses me off so much. Can they not produce more and just freeze it? Christmas will be here soon enough and they will have a stockpile, so they don't have to airlift in New Zealand butter like they did in the past!

[matsuki]

I was going to suggest Costco but for the past 2 weeks they haven't had the large blocks of NZ butter they usually carry.

[Mike Oxlong]

I was going to suggest Costco but for the past 2 weeks they haven't had the large blocks of NZ butter they usually carry.

Maybe you should be going to Taro's Costco. I used to frequent the one near 幕張メッセ, but in recent years have found the more local ones to be a better bet.

[canman]

Unfortunately boys, up here in ice hockey land, aka Aomori, we don't have a CostCo anywhere near us! Closest is near Sendai a 3 hour drive, which I often make, but with the tolls etc it kind of kills the savings you would get.

[matsuki]

Hopefully their online offerings get better and it would still be worth it for you. They really should open one up there.

Shinmisato one near me has a gas station that is usually 10 yen less per liter than a normal gas station. A few months of filling up and the membership has paid for itself.

Finally got butter but went to buy hand soap yesterday and holy shit....I can see it now, Japan loses the battle with the Corona virus due to hand soap shortage!

[BigInJapan]

Here in Fukuoka, my local supermarket hasn't had flour (強力粉 or 薄力粉) for at least two weeks. Friends told me about some Hokkaido flour online, and sure enough, you can find it on the world's 2nd longest river site.
A 5kg bag will run you 2,680 yen, which is less per kg than some of the other ripoff items such as カメリア 1kg for 1,100 yen, etc.
Search for: パン用 強力粉 平和製粉 春よ恋 100%

Butter is also scarce, but I managed to get some by going to the supermarket in the morning (gotta beat the obaa-chan crowd).

- HTH

[matsuki]

I ended up ordering my needs on the Prime river as well. Fuck battling with the baba's in the morning, waking up earlier than them is a battle I don't need.