Shaky beef supply, shortage of rice drive home Japan's food security fears

Dire challenges lead to novel solutions, with ostrich rice bowls appearing on the menu

- Walter Sim

Yoshinoya, the famous gyudon (beef bowl) chain, served up ostrich rice bowls as a limited-time menu option in late August, looking to the flightless bird as a means to stabilize volatile beef supplies.

For a country renowned world-wide for its exquisite washoku or traditional cuisine and premium high-quality produce, Japan suffers from dire food security challenges at home.

It is a net importer of food, particularly for day-to-day consumption, making it susceptible to external shocks to shipping lines and the volatility of inflation. Even the food it produces domestically is vulnerable to challenges like climate change and an aging workforce in the agricultural trade, with few successors.

Yoshinoya president Yasutaka Kawamura told a news conference in August that the vagaries of supply chains for beef, which it imports from the United States and Canada, led the company to buy an ostrich farm in Ibaraki prefecture.

"Yoshinoya's operations have always been affected by the situation surrounding beef," Mr Kawamura said. "To grow our business while protecting beef bowl operations, we need to diversify to reduce risk."

While Yoshinoya also has pork and chicken on its menu, the ostrich venture through its subsidiary Speedia marks a major shift for the 125-year-old company. Now, Yoshinoya is also selling skincare products made using ostrich oil as a means to raise funds to secure more ostrich meat in the future.

The ostrich bowl menu has been discontinued for the time being, after all 60,000 bowls made available were snapped up despite costing 1,683 yen (S$15) each - about three times the price of a beef bowl.

The venture comes as beef prices soar. Japanese wholesale prices of frozen US beef belly used in gyudon were up 80 per cent on the year at 1,450 yen to 1,530 yen per kilogram, and Yoshinoya raised gyudon prices in July for the fourth consecutive year.