Agencies
Orange juice, once a staple in Japanese households, is becoming increasingly scarce on store shelves.
The culprit is not a decline in consumer interest, but a severe disruption in the supply chain as domestic orange juice producers halt operations amid soaring prices and crop failures in key orange-growing regions worldwide.
The historic depreciation of the yen over the last three years has made matters worse as Japanese companies, who rely on imports for over 80 percent of Japan’s fruit juice demand, fight an uphill battle to purchase the juice
)overseas.
According to the Japan Fruit Juice Association, the import price per liter of orange juice nearly doubled from 267 yen in 2021 to 491 yen in 2023.
The main reason for the price surge is a supply shortage due to bad weather and disease. Serious crop failures in Brazil, the world’s largest orange juice producer and accounting for half of Japan’s orange juice imports, led to a sharp decline in imports in 2021.
Production had been on the mend but the disease has spread to the United States, resulting in a worldwide shortage of orange juice. Juice can be frozen and stored for several years, but an association official admits: “We don’t even have it in stock.” For orange juice makers, the falling yen is a double whammy. European and U.S. juice importers’ products are trading at even higher prices due to strong demand in their countries. Japanese companies face international market prices that prevent them from making a profit due in part to the weak yen’s inflation of import prices.
