Japanese retailers turn to California rice for cheaper alternative

Japan Times

14-05-2025

Japanese retailers are turning to California-grown rice, known as Calrose, as an alternative to Japanese rice, which remains pricey and hard to come by.
On Tuesday, major retailer Aeon held a Calrose tasting event at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, where it revealed it will start selling the 'Karoyaka' variety from June 6.
'For Japan's largest supermarket chain to offer 100% U.S.-grown Calrose rice in its stores across the country is truly a historic moment,' said U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass.
A 4 kilogram bag of Calrose rice will cost ¥2,894, about 15% cheaper than Japanese rice. The average supermarket price of a 5 kg bag of Japanese rice was ¥4,214 during the week of April 28.
Calrose rice is a long grain variety and not as sticky as Japanese rice, and it works well in meals such as fried rice or risotto.
'While valuing domestically produced rice with the aim of achieving both freedom of choice and security of supply, we would like to newly offer customers the freedom of choice by selling Calrose rice,' Aeon's executive vice president, Mitsuko Tsuchiya, said.
California rice at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday |
JIJI
Aeon began selling a blend of Japanese and American rice last month, with the U.S. rice imported under the 'minimum access' deal — an agreement under the World Trade Organization that allows Japan to import a certain amount of foreign rice tariff-free. However, Karoyaka will be imported outside of the minimum access deal, with Aeon paying a ¥341-per-kilogram tariff.
Using foreign rice as a quick fix may be turning into a trend among retailers.
Ito Yokado, another major retailer, sold bags of California-grown rice between February and April at a few select stores around the country . Seiyu, a supermarket chain, has been selling Taiwan-grown rice since last November.
'Unlike other rice like Thai rice, (Calrose rice) has a certain stickiness to it, so if you are somewhat good at cooking rice, you can eat it without feeling any stark difference (from Japanese rice),' said a Hiranoya rice store worker in Tokyo, who only gave her last name Hirano.
She said many people may have misconceptions about how Calrose tastes.
'Compared to Japanese rice it is a little less sticky but nothing that you can't get past — it's rice that many major Japanese restaurant chains use already so it's not that different,' she said.
Since last year, Japan has been seeing major spikes in rice prices, prompting the government to auction off its emergency stockpile of rice. However, the grain remains more than double the price of what it was the year before.