Japanese shoppers have traditionally steered away from overseas rice. However dealing with excessive costs, they rushed final week to purchase the primary South Korean imports to Japan in a long time, clearing the cabinets inside days, South Korean officers mentioned.
It was a comparatively small quantity, just a little over two tons, in contrast with Japan’s total scarcity, nevertheless it was a giant change from the nation’s final rice disaster, in 1993. Then, rice imported from locations like Thailand, a prime rice exporter, languished unsold in shops.
“Japanese rice itself is so scrumptious that folks haven’t had the arrogance to eat overseas rice,” mentioned Park Jaehyun, a South Korean rice sommelier who’s licensed in Japan. “Now they know: The standard of rice can be fairly good in South Korea.”
Due to Japan’s 200,000-ton shortage of rice, its staple grain, the federal government has tapped its emergency reserves. Nonetheless, costs have remained excessive, double final yr’s.
That has unfold appreciation for quite a lot of overseas rice. South Korea’s Nationwide Agricultural Cooperative Federation, which exported the rice, mentioned it had not offered rice to Japan for a minimum of 35 years.
South Korea’s rice has a bonus over another nations’ product. Like Japanese rice, it belongs to the short-grain japonica selection and presents a sticky texture prized in East Asian delicacies. In distinction, indica rice — which is usually grown in hotter climates, together with Thailand — is lengthy grain and fewer sticky.
“It has much less aroma and is much less candy than Japanese rice,” Takashi Kobayashi, a rice sommelier and retailer in Tokyo, mentioned of South Korean rice. However when he in contrast California, Thai and Taiwanese rice, “Korean rice was closest to Japanese rice.”
Mr. Park, the South Korean sommelier, mentioned that South Korean rice had a mixture of “gentle and chewy with a little bit of fluffiness” acquainted to Japanese shoppers.
Some Japanese guests to South Korea are taking their very own rice souvenirs dwelling with them. On Thursday, a relentless trickle of Japanese-speaking vacationers visited the rice part of a grocery store fashionable with vacationers at Seoul’s central practice station.
A bunch of three ladies from Japan mentioned they’d thought-about shopping for luggage of rice weighing greater than 40 kilos till they realized they would wish to get via customs, which they feared could be cumbersome.
At a grocery store in Tokyo on Friday, Korean rice supplied for about 25 % lower than Japanese rice was offered out. Indicators within the retailer introduced it might be again in inventory on Might 3.
The rice being exported to Japan was cultivated in Haenam County, considered one of South Korea’s prime rice producers. Officers within the county, close to the southern coast, had been elated at how fashionable it was.
“We didn’t understand our rice would promote so shortly,” mentioned Lee Yun-heui, the supervisor of the county authorities’s rice division. “We’re blissful that it’s nicely obtained and consciousness is rising.”
She mentioned the county had shipped an preliminary 2.2 tons in late March, which offered out inside every week of reaching Japanese shoppers this month. An extra 22 tons are scheduled to comply with within the subsequent month. Now, the county is in talks to export 330 extra tons, she mentioned, including {that a} neighboring county was additionally planning to export to Japan.
That quantity remains to be a small fraction of the 7,000 tons of rice South Korea exports to different nations annually, primarily for the Korean diaspora. The nation produces greater than 4 million tons a yr.
The exports won’t maintain growing. Han-ho Kim, a professor of agricultural commerce at Seoul Nationwide College, steered that the value bounce in Japan was driving the recognition of South Korean rice. The distribution from the Japanese authorities’s rice reserves ought to decrease costs in about two months, in line with Mr. Kobayashi, the Japanese sommelier and retailer.
For the South Korean growers, exporting to Japan isn’t significantly worthwhile, largely due to delivery prices and Japan’s tariffs.
Ms. Lee, the county official, mentioned the cooperative profited 3 to six cents per pound in exporting surplus rice it had bought from farmers. Farmers revenue as a lot as 95 cents for a similar quantity offered domestically, she mentioned.
“The value of Japanese rice wants to extend much more for the export to be sustainable,” mentioned Na Dae-hwan, the president of the Korea Rice Buying and selling Affiliation.
One shopper on the grocery store in Seoul on Thursday had knowledgeable curiosity within the rice. Shinko Kawamura, a rice farmer from northern Japan, studied the varieties on the cabinets although he didn’t have to buy any. He mentioned he was involved for his fellow farmers again dwelling.
“I simply hope Japanese shoppers can take pleasure in Japanese rice for an affordable value once more,” he mentioned.
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