Japan braces for another butter shortage

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  • 26

    Moonraker

    Import it. No one can claim butter is a culturally sensitive item with a long history of being produced in Japan.

  • 17

    Sensato

    “The government plans to have butter imports on a scale sufficient for stable supply,” said Agriculture Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Tuesday

    I am getting very tired of supermarkets here regularly running out of butter for days on end, and having to hoard it since much of my cooking relies on the ingredient.

    I really do wish Japan's ministry of agriculture would simply get out of the business of deciding how much butter Japan will import. Let the free market decide! The agriculture bureaucrats are doing a horrible job of ensuring "stable supply" — an advanced economy like Japan should not continually face chronic butter shortages as it now does.

  • 4

    Yubaru

    Import it. No one can claim butter is a culturally sensitive item with a long history of being produced in Japan.

    How about the cows? (lol!) Probably some dairy farmer will try to make this argument anyway, I would love to hear some dairy farmer from Okinawa make this claim.......milk (cows in fact) were first introduced to Okinawa in the early 1900's, there was no milk or dairy products here before then.

  • 9

    Frederic Bastiat

    Get the government idiots OUT of business (and their stepchild JA) and let business take care of itself.

  • 9

    CrazyJoe

    Another butter meltdown?

  • 6

    Moonraker

    Of course, if the "culture" excuse can't be used there is always the quality one - they will say Japanese butter is better than any other (The "frog in the well" excuse), and this usually goes down a treat - or, failing that, there is the "safety" one. The safety excuse is usually a clincher and has widespread uses but especially for supporting narrow agricultural interests.

  • 5

    Maria

    It's odd that although this butter shortage is only national, there is always a lack of any kind of butter, even the imported, expensive, delicious French ones, at the same time. You'd think that stores would be better prepared, given the regularity of this shortage.

  • 10

    HaraldBloodaxe

    Another one? What do you mean, another one? You're still only allowed to buy one pack per family at the supermarkets round my way, and you get to pay a premium to do so.

    Why do I get the feeling that imports on "a scale sufficient for stable supply" will not be the same thing as imports on a scale sufficient to reduce the price of what is, in modern countries, a cheap and basic foodstuff. Abe has to look after the ag lobby who put him where he is.

  • 12

    gelendestrasse

    This is the dumbest thing I've herd (pun) lately. NZ has lots of dairy. So does the US and Canada. A lack of butter is just stupid import rules.

  • 3

    FizzBit

    I like how they say "last year", wasn't it only 5 months ago? Was looking at some foreclosure properties with google maps yesterday of Hokkaido, and some areas looked desolate. BTW, there is a cheap dairy farm up there for any who wanna go into the butter business. Sure glad I have a separate freezer full of butter. Who didn't see this coming?

  • 2

    smithinjapan

    And if they have to import it more, with the US dollar and other currencies rising against the yen, get ready for more than 1000 yen per lb., if you can find it.

  • -3

    Ajam1

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

    +

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

    = nonsense.

    When assessing information not provided by the money chain, that being, despite what graphic intense food pyramids say, we simply do not need milk after we are babies. So, part of this story is based on valid knowledge. Perhaps for the greater good this is an opportunity in disguise. There are other ways to make a living off the land, and instead of Governmental market control, maybe time/energy and honest approaches should be spent on re-tooling dairy farms. Maybe it's time to wean ourselves from cow tits and grow up.

    Rather than rewriting history books and promoting the standing and singing of the national anthem in schools, educational revamping (including media too) can rewrite misconceptions and bring the populace into an educated loop, leading to limiting dairy products to special occasions, rather than as a daily staple. If we return the dairy industry to it's small-scale, alfalfa-fed roots, where producers have personal and respectful relationships with their animals and make fine artisan products like cheese or yogurt (as opposed to the average limited offering on store shelves - water yogurt, camembert, camem-boring, which quash tastes and lead to further ignorance of truly good product), perhaps, perhaps, with time a place for such delicacy recognition can grow: A splash of bettercream in your coffee, or a pad of varieties of butters in your mushrooms, might not kill the world. But maybe the days of standing in front of the open fridge chugging milk from the bottle will come to an end.

  • 9

    Himajin

    If all else fails, make your own. One pack of whipping cream and some salt is all you need. You can do it with an electric hand mixer, or if you want to keep the kids busy, put a clean marble in the pack and let them shake it till you hear the butter and whey separate. Wash the blob of butter, squeeze out well in cheese cloth and add salt. It's soft, so I wouldn't recommend it for baking, but for everyday toast etc I made butter all last summer.

  • 8

    crustpunker

    Scam.

    Just trying to get people to consume crappy margarine.

  • 6

    warispeace

    If they want to protect the local industry to some extent, then just charge a tariff. In the case of butter, the price has gone up exorbitantly because of low supply, likely benefiting others down the supply chain and not the farmers. This means even with a tariff, with sufficient supply the price could be reduced.

    If anything, what the government should be regulating more is the overuse of the tran-fat killer shortening, overused in bread and packaged sweets here. For some reason, despite WHO warnings, there has been no movement here against this food-like substance.

  • 8

    Aly Rustom

    The fact that we now have a shortage of butter is a taste of things to come. Mark my words. As the population gets older and there are less and less farmers and fishermen, there will be alot more to worry about than just butter. It won't stop there.

  • 0

    Ajam1

    F.M.N - smiles. - I need my asiago to happen... but I appreciate the wit in your above :-)

  • 4

    Maria

    Coconut oil is another fine alternative. Lovely toasted or when frying.

  • 9

    clueless

    Economics 101...I know exactly what they are doing and why.

    Nasty consumer manipulation.

  • -4

    DaDude

    I hope it doesn't include those rolls with the butter in the middle. I love those

  • 0

    bass4funk

    Again? Are you serious?? How is it possible?!

  • 9

    gaihonjin

    Two days ago, I was looking for butter at my local supermarket. I stood there for a few minutes, scanning each label, thinking that surely I'd misread or had just missed the butter, but after asking the staff for help I was told that 'what you see is all there is.'

    Now I understand what's going on! It's very strange to have food shortages in the third-ranked economy in the world, especially for a commodity so commonplace as butter.

  • 0

    Sensato

    A pound of butter costs roughly $5 per pound in the U.S. compared with roughly $18 per pound in Japan (Y2,929 for three 200g portions). That is an absurd price disparity.

    These numbers are based on rough calculations involving one popular brand of butter in U.S. supermarkets (Land O Lakes) and another in Japan (Yukijirushi Hokkaido Butter), sold via Amazon U.S. and Amazon Japan (now sold out), respectively.

  • 1

    Stephen Knight

    The imported stuff was more than $7 a pound at Costco yesterday...

  • 4

    Himajin

    Sensato, butter at the super is about 405 yen per 200g pack plus tax ( when they have it).

  • 8

    Steve Leeper

    I love the way no one mentions all the milk that went down the drain and all the dairy cows that were killed or rendered useless by Fukushima. Strange how all this butter shortage started not long after March 2011.

  • -4

    Strangerland

    Strange how all this butter shortage started not long after March 2011.

    It did? I never heard anything about it until this year - 2015. Or do you mean 4 years is 'not long after'.

  • 5

    Maria

    @Strangerland - there have been at least three that I recall, all in the last 2-3 years.

  • 0

    ebisen

    Yeah, they always have like 2 gazillion types of margarine (pick your poison, folks), but not one single pack of butter... I guess we'll find out in a few years how the margarine producers collaborated with JA to manipulate the market and increase the sales on that poison...

  • 0

    Sensato

    butter at the super is about 405 yen per 200g pack plus tax ( when they have it).

    @Himajin

    Thank you for the pricing information. That would calculate out to about $7.50 (Y920) per pound — significantly closer to the U.S. supermarket per-pound price of $5(?).

    My information came from this link (since updated to 2,280Y for three 200g portions: http://goo.gl/Bd67ap

  • 10

    Elizabeth Heath

    A first world country with food shortages. The only time I have experienced shortages of everyday items was in the early 70's in the UK. Power cuts, three day weeks, no sugar, bread and toilet paper. This was mostly due to mass industrial action. Japan doesn't have that excuse, so the only answers is either deliberate market manipulation, poor planning or, probably, both.

  • 6

    Himajin

    Steve, the first shortages were in 2008. The effects of the 2008 policy combined with a huge number of elderly farmers quitting the business has only made it worse. The milk thrown away in Fukushima is a fraction of national production.

    http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737304,00.html

  • -2

    25psot

    Import ghee from India and problem solved...or squeeze the cows a little more but don't kill them....

  • 1

    massiou81

    A great new idea for my Omiyage to my colleagues after some holidays in Europe - "Hey Kato-san, Furansu kara no batta desu." - "Waaaa, sutekiii ! mezurashiiii !!"

  • 5

    jerseyboy

    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.

    How funny. I commented just a day or two ago in support of TPP, based on the thinking that a open/free market for dairy products had to be better than the lunacy of no butter during the last holidays, and, lo and behold, it has happened again. Anyone who thinks a "managed" economy, like Japan's, is superior to a free-market one, with this kind of evidence, is simply irrational. Why do you think a bunch of bureaucrats can do a better job of deciding how much butter consumers need than the consumers themselves? Especially when they have to answer to a multitude of political and special interests? It's 2015 folks, and Japan is having to have "emergency imports" of butter! LOL. Sounds like NK and wheat. Face it, it's broken.

  • 0

    Himajin

    I wonder does ice cream production ramping up for summer cause this in part? We couldn't buy butter from June to September in my local store last year.

  • 7

    Illyas

    @Ajam

    If people want to consume dairy, that's their decision. Let the free market decide.

  • 2

    gogogo

    TPP anyone?

  • -4

    Elizabeth Heath

    Costco - poor quality stuff at inflated prices. It doesn't surprise me they are ripping people off with the butter prices.

  • 9

    Scrote

    The shortage of butter is because everyone wants Christmas cakes.

    Oops: that was the excuse they came up with in December. The real reason is the bureaucrats in charge of butter supply are useless. They should be fired and people allowed to import butter freely. This would also save money and with the government claiming to be keen on such savings it's a win-win situation for all. The sacked bureaucrats can get part time jobs in Lawson, if they can manage to pass the interview.

  • 12

    Gary Raynor

    jerseyboyMay. 27, 2015 - 10:24AM JST

    Japan is having to have "emergency imports" of butter! LOL. Sounds like NK and wheat. Face it, it's broken.

    Reminds me of my student exchange days in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Actually Japanese Supermarkets remind me of those days. Consumer choice to the Japanese means which one of a hundred dry noodles do want and which one of fifty brands of Chu hi do you want to wash it down?

    The food servicing industry in Japan, because of the high tariffs/gate system on imports and the licensing system is a total expensive mess. That I can buy a set gyodon meal in a restaurant for the price of 4 tomatoes in a supermarket tells you something is seriously wrong.

    A few years ago in Wakannai I was talking to some of the buyers of Russian crabs. The license system was ridiculous. One guy, Japanese, had a license to buy crabs from the Russian boats however he couldn't sell them in Japan. Another guy had a license to sell those crabs in Hokkaido, but not buy them from the Russians. They both told me that to sell their crabs in Honshu the one who buys directly from the Russians was forbidden to do so, but the Hokkaido seller could by selling them to a person with a license that allowed him to sell in Honshu Finally to sell the crabs in Tokyo or Osaka, the final party, the Honshu licensee, had to find someone with a special permit that allowed him to sell in either Tokyo or Osaka, but only allowed him to buy from the Honshu licensee.

    Crazy, utterly crazy.

  • 4

    badsey3

    Need to import the Kerry Gold grass-fed butter. = People need their Vitamin K2.

  • -11

    Triring

    Gary Raynor

    It's called smuggling and is forbidden around the world in case you didn't know.

  • 12

    Gary Raynor

    TriringMay. 27, 2015 - 12:00PM JST

    Gary Raynor

    It's called smuggling and is forbidden around the world in case you didn't know.

    What are you on about?

    It's the licensing system that's used by nearly all the Japanese networks. It's highly regulated, red taped and a monopoly for those families who hold the licenses.

    2 years ago, for the first time ever, supermarkets were allowed to buy a very limited number of fish products directly from the fishermen.

    However the system has remained largely intact for the other 98% of fish products. The end result is ,especially with agricultural, dairy, fish and meat products in supermarkets, is that the end buyer, the urban Japanese shopper, pays very high prices for products with a very limited freshness period - ever notice how that red onion you cut yesterday has already gone off?

  • 9

    WilliB

    These butter shortages are weird. Shades of the Soviet Union and East Block economies... even in the third world, you can get stuff if you can pay for it.

  • 1

    M3M3M3

    I buy the Meiji butter in the squeeze tube and it never actually went out of stock when all the other butters were sold out. I'm starting to wonder if it's real butter...

  • 5

    Christopher Scott Magor

    The tariff on imported butter is over 300% - which means that the yummy, expensive French butters should actually be the same price as the junk sold by the likes of the Snow company.

  • 4

    Himajin

    I buy the Meiji butter in the squeeze tube and it never actually went out of stock when all the other butters were sold out. I'm starting to wonder if it's real butter...

    It isn't, I just had a look online. It's a blended product, 1/3 butter.

  • 3

    Alphaape

    Why do you think a bunch of bureaucrats can do a better job of deciding how much butter consumers need than the consumers themselves?

    @ jerseyboy: Good post. I can try to answer your question by simply saying that it seems that in all businesses that occur in Japan, it is the government/industry leaders who keep the competion low and the choices slim. Not just in the food industry but other industries as well.

    As people's tastes changes, the businesses are slow to react since it could mean that they no longer have to do business with a long time associate in order to look at the new and how they try to make the consumer think that they know what's best so that they can keep things going as they have gone before. Look at industries like the cell phone telecoms and how far behind they are compared to other countries, as well as the entertainment industry and how one is forced into media or entertainment that is government approved.

  • 4

    wtfjapan

    this is f ridiculous, and people still say Japan needs to protect its farmers, but it the j gov that keeps the bs rules in place making rationing and higher prices. the sooner the TPP is here the better. tired of getting screwed by the minority

  • 2

    M3M3M3

    Thanks for looking Himajin. I don't even want to know what the other 2/3s is. :(

  • 0

    FizzBit

    Lots left now at the local Costco. ¥833. for 450 grams. Not bad.

  • -5

    wtfjapan

    @franchesca better rethink your cooking oils coconut oil is one of the worst oils with good/bad fat ratios, most made of bad fats, on the other side Flax seed oil on the other hand is one of the best good/bad fat ratios. the best 5 healthy oils for cooking are , Hazelnut , olive, Flaxseed, Avocardo,Salmon, Almond , Canola.. of all the oils coconut is one of the worst.

  • 3

    Chris Sommovigo

    For such a modern society, one would think this kind of primitivism would have been dealt with long ago. Butter shortage? IMPORT!

  • 2

    onagagamo

    Can't wait for Japan to join TPP.

  • 4

    Gary Raynor

    onagagamo

    Can't wait for Japan to join TPP.

    If you think it's going to improve under the TPA, you're kidding yourself.

    Japan already has an EPA with Mexico and limes haven't gone down a yen and they're still substandard.

    The Japanese elites have every intention in making sure that the agricultural clauses of the TPP are not implemented to the detriment of Japanese farmers and if they can't do it through tariff barriers, they'll sure as hell make sure they do it through non-tariff barriers.

    Japan since the mid-60's have been experts at keeping their domestic market closed and controlled.

    Anyone else see the price and quality of this year's American cherries?

  • 3

    Disillusioned

    This seems to happen every year, but I always see butter for sale in the supermarket. I tend to hoard butter a bit after reading about the origins of margarine. It was invented some 70 odd years ago and used to fatten turkeys, but they stopped feeding it to turkeys when large numbers started to die from heart disease. They then put some yellow colouring in it and sold it for human consumption. True!

  • 3

    Brian Wheway

    In the UK at this point in time, dairy farmers are going out of business as there is a glut of milk on the european market, so the prossescers are dictating what price they pay farmers for milk, and its getting lower and lower, its at a point now its cost farmers to produce it, rather than make a profit, heres a business opportunity to export cheap butter from the UK to Japan, as we can supply the goods!

  • 6

    Jaymann

    We're swimming in the stuff in NZ... It's cheap and if you signed the TPP and ended inefficient farming and economic practices - then you could have as much as you like...... Just saying

  • 2

    Gary Raynor

    Brian Wheway.

    heres a business opportunity to export cheap butter from the UK to Japan, as we can supply the goods!

    Jaymann.

    We're swimming in the stuff in NZ... It's cheap and if you signed the TPP and ended inefficient farming and economic practices - then you could have as much as you like...... Just saying

    You're both living under a misunderstanding about the principles of the Japanese economy. The basic principles are neo-mercantilist, which entails that I export as much as I can to you and I try to make you export as little as possible to me. By this I can accrue large current account surpluses and use those surpluses to subsidize the less healthy parts of my domestic economy.

    The comfort of the consumer is not a considered variable in the economic equation. The Japanese populace are the workforce that manufacture those exports and whose material desires are curtailed as much as possible, because if those material desires were allowed to be slated, then those current account surpluses would soon disappear and the economic model, with those inefficient domestic industries, would soon disappear.

    That is why most of us in Japan live in substandard overpriced housing, subsist on substandard overpriced foodstuffs and have the lowest minimum wage in the G7; even though we live and work in the 3rd biggest economy in the world!

    PM Yoshida Shigeru in 1952 put it well when he said that the modern Japanese would be content with the 3 S's; Sex, Cinema and Sport.

  • 1

    lucabrasi

    The local organic supermarket never seems to run short. Good stuff, too, if a bit pricey.

    @Disillusioned

    Someone's feeding you dodgy info. Margarine was invented by the French in the 1860s, specifically as a cheap alternative to butter for the army and navy.

  • 0

    nandakandamanda

    Maybe my students won't think me "bata-kusai" while I use olive oil. Is this the slippery slope?

  • 0

    It"S ME

    I use Butter mostly for Bread baking and maybe a bit in mash, etc.

    For cooking/frying I use Canola, Sesame, Peanut, Sunflower Oil and Lard.

  • 1

    bruinfan

    Thank you bureaucrats for another legislated "fake" shortage. Some people may all but worship you, but you make Japan look bad.

  • 2

    25years in Japan

    wtfjapan best 5 healthy oils for cooking are , Hazelnut , olive, Flaxseed, Avocardo,Salmon, Almond , Canola.. of all the oils coconut is one of the worst. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    You need to do more research, Coconut oil is the healthiest oil, Flaxseed and olive oil should not be used heated and Canola comes from GM modified Rapeseed plant. Butter is healthy especially if it comes from grass fed cows.

    Gary Raynor said--- That is why most of us in Japan live in substandard overpriced housing, subsist on substandard overpriced foodstuffs and have the lowest minimum wage in the G7; even though we live and work in the 3rd biggest economy in the world!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This is what I keep saying all the time. I hope one day it will reach the ears of those who run this country. The government interferes and has too much control of what is imported. Japanese companies should be free to import butter. I have been buying New Zealand butter from a certain shop and was shocked to see a large increase in price on the old stock.

  • 2

    YongYang

    I love buttering Japanese muffins, it'S one of my favorite pastimes, luckily I have lots of butter, it's really quite easy to make.

  • 0

    wtfjapan

    @25yrs I have done coconut oil has very high in bad fats seen it on many sites, one here http://www.healthcastle.com/cooking-oils.shtml

  • -1

    cleo

    I love buttering Japanese muffins

    I know of English muffins (yummy) and American muffins (=cupcakes), but in all my years here I don't think I've ever come across a Japanese muffin. What are they like?

  • 2

    coskuri

    butter shortage started not long after March 2011....It did?

    Nope. The pantomine started around 2007 or 2008. I don't eat butter myself (neri goma is so much tastier) but in 2008, I started ordering and stocking New Zealand butter for my Christmas baking classes. The first years that was moderate, they were testing to see if kamos were ready to wait in line to buy 600 yen packs of butter and they did isshokenme. That worked over the expectations,so food industry have repeated the scam. After 2011, they had tried it with milk (the insane prices and organised shortage).

    I never heard anything about it until this year - 2015.

    What you don't know doesn't exist ?

  • 1

    Ian Robertson

    What do you mean 'another' shortage? The last one is still in effect. I can still only buy one pack of butter in any one store.

  • 0

    Himajin

    Thanks for looking Himajin. I don't even want to know what the other 2/3s is. :(

    No problem, M3M3M3, I've always been curious about whether it was butter or not myself, when I'd see it in the suparmarket :-)  The other 2/3 is vegetable oil, salt, vitamin E etc.

  • 1

    Yubaru

    The imported stuff was more than $7 a pound at Costco yesterday..

    FYI not all Japan has Costco and I am surprised to learn that Costco quotes prices in US $ too.

  • 2

    Farmboy

    But a bit of better butter will make me bankrupt... No, that just won't work.

  • -4

    Serrano

    "If all else fails, make your own. One pack of whipping cream and some salt is all you need."

    Whipping cream is way too expensive. Margarine, anyone?

  • 2

    presto345

    Butter in Japan retails at prices 4 to 8 times higher than in the EU. If this isn't rip off what is? Market trends are very predictable. Ignoring them borders on crime and benefits only sly traders. The government should stay out of free market forces.

  • 2

    YongYang

    I've come across many Japanese muffins, they are a wonderful thing. Butter them up, even tastier!

  • -1

    Wc626

    Butter shortages last year provoked anguish for shoppers, especially in the run-up to the Christmas cake-baking season

    LoL- whatever do they mean?? As if every modern Japanese Kitchen can brag of having an oven big enough to bake cakes, sheet of x-mas cookies, turkeys, whole pizzas etc . . . in the first place.

  • 2

    Himajin

    Bakeries ordered lots more butter than usual and got priority, and supermarket shoppers were not able to buy it.

  • 2

    Tessa

    Here's a good overview of the whole situation:

    http://justhungry.com/butter-shortage-japan

    Comments are interesting, too.

    @YongYang: naughty!

  • -1

    Asa Void

    HimajinMAY. 27, 2015 - 09:19AM JST Sensato, butter at the super is about 405 yen per 200g pack plus tax ( when they have it).< 405 for 200g.... that the hell? For that price you can import it from AUSTRIA per AIR Transport. Here 250g cost 135 yen in the supermarket - if you buy in bulk as company does you get 1000g for less then 50 yen.

    And you get good Quality butter from milk the cows were able to get get out on the meadow of the alps.

  • -2

    YuriOtani

    I know a lot of the posters are SOFA or retired military. Why not shop on base to buy butter? I do warn you the bred is stale, the milk is sour and the vegetables are decayed but you can not get everything.

  • -1

    Apolitical

    Interesting, I thought butter shortage was something only countries with cold climate encounter - like Norway for example.

  • 0

    Bill Adams

    Protecting domestic producers is all very well, but when it leads to shortages in basic essentials then you know you've got it wrong. Dairy products are hardly a vital national industry! Just open up the market so that supermarkets can import what they want from where they want. Having a butter shortage is embarrassing for the country.

    As for the best butter, it is British and New Zealand. Delicious.

  • 0

    Alphaape

    These types of shortages occur when you have a political economy vice a monetary economy. If this were a true monetary economy, farmers and producers of dairy would be able to regulate how much butter they would put on the market based on demand. If the end of the year "cake baking" season is coming up, they would produce more and there wouldn't be shortages. But what we see here in Japan is a political economy, where the dairy/farming industry will rely on the politicians to enact rules and let the legislate and regulate their production, allowing them to at least keep a steady stream of income in the form of subsidies to stay afloat, and to stifle competition.

    America has a political economy at some parts and not a true monetary economy, but the difference is that American industries can weather these manipulations better than the Japanese compaines.

  • 0

    how to get gimelim

    I love buttering Japanese muffins, it'S one of my favorite pastimes, luckily I have lots of butter, it's really quite easy to make.

    Well played.

  • -2

    John-San

    I am a butter and ice cream nut. I go through 300gm of butter a week and buy H Das daily. So I make sure that I have to buy 1/2 kilo of butter a week and freezes 200 gm each week until I can not fit any more in the freezer. To avoid shortages. Yes Menji butter is a mix of poly and saturated oil. Japan can only accommodate a small herd of dairy cattle. The margin made on butter and cheese is very small. French butter is not has good has Hokkaido butter. The pale colour of french butter is due the the fact that the herd is feed silage which contain little chloroform and are house all year round. Japan herds have a mix of field feed and silage feed. Australian butter is yellow because they herd is fed in the field with fresh green grass which have a higher level of chloroform but is pasteurised and homodngurise and taste shows. Japan cheeses are amazingly good and cheap due to fact they use raw milk and the right breeds for the condition. Japan ice cream is also very good. a good ice cream has a heavier weight to volume ratio. A herd produce the same volume of milk per month all year. So the Butter shortage is due to season taste. More ice cream is eaten during the summer. Japan can only import milk powder. because that how milk is move around the world in powder form or in heat treated long life liquid form.

  • 0

    Tony W.

    Australia exports a lot of food to Japan already and has plenty of good-quality butter - agitate for Australian butter!

  • 2

    mrkobayashi

    Japanese government has announced they will import an additional 1 ton of butter. No need to panic.

  • 1

    YuriOtani

    Aussie butter is so yummy! Since there is shortage the Japanese government should open the market.

  • 0

    kurisupisu

    I'm off to the UK on Sunday so I'll be bringing back a several kilos of the stuff and cheese!!!!

  • 0

    Serrano

    Margarine, anyone? No?

  • 1

    badsey3

    Everyone flying into Japan should be forced to bring grass-fed butter with them.

  • -4

    choiwaruoyaji

    @john-san

    You are Japanese, right?

    French butter is not has good has Hokkaido butter.

    Haha... that's funny... you have never been to France, I think.

    Japan cheeses are amazingly good

    Again... this is hilarious... I think this can only be said by someone who has never been abroad.

    Japan ice cream is also very good

    You have never tasted real ice cream, right?

    Japan can only accommodate a small herd of dairy cattle

    Don't be ridiculous. The controllers of the Japanese system have made a big mistake. Japan should import more butter. NZ butter is more delicious than Japanese butter. That's why the Japanese producers are scared of it.

    BTW remember the "Yuki-jirushi" scandal of a few years ago?

    How do you explain that?

    Japanese people always go on about "delicious Japanese food" but somehow forget their own food scandals.

  • 0

    1glenn

    I was not aware that Japanese used any butter at all. Logical, though, given the universal appeal of cakes and pastries.

  • 0

    danalawton1@yahoo.com

    Farmers in Japan, thru a close cozy LDP relationship are "having their cake and eating it too". Basically the Govt protects their markets and when they are unable to supply demand... the free market does not get involved but the Govt imports an "emergency supply". Meanwhile the cost of food in Japan stays absurdly high.

  • 0

    Dukeleto

    Governments are truly useless wasteful entities. I think Singapore is the only exception IMO.

  • 0

    Patrick Kimura-Macke

    Regular butter shortages have been happening in Japan for several years, perhaps the recent ones are more severe but isn't it strange that the government can't solve this problem? Perhaps they don't want to. Maybe Mr Abe thinks; "We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms. One cannot shoot with butter, but with guns" or "Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat", as part of his preparations for Japan after the removal of Article 9.

  • 0

    kurisupisu

    I'm having butter on my bread this week- I've got kilos of the stuff!!!!

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