Date of Issue: September 2022 Issue of Bakery Japan　　Category: Knowledge

Everything Is Going Up In Price, And Situation Is More Serious Than Ever


Toho Bakery in Mitaka City， Tokyo


Kawagoe Bakery Rakuraku in Kawagoe City，
Saitama Prefecture


Mizube-no Saffron Abiko Shop in Abiko City， Chiba Prefecture


Petit Ange in Kunitachi City， Tokyo
In last month's and this month's issues of our magazine, we interviewed 8 bakeries about price increases of bread ingredients. We asked them the same 6 questions concerning the situation of the current price hike.

All of the bakeries we interviewed agreed that "everything is going up in price, and the situation is more serious than ever," and that the price increases of flour, fats, and foreign dried fruits and nuts were particularly steep. Many shops had already implemented one price increase this year and were considering one more before the end of the year.

Toho Bakery in Mitaka City, Tokyo, raised the prices of 70 to 80% of its products by 3% to 10% this January. The bakery plans to raise prices for the second time this year, but this time, instead of raising prices all at once, it will first raise prices on shokupan breads and hearth products, which will have larger price increase, and then after taht, raise the prices of sweet breads and breads baked with cooked toppings. At the same time, they will use higher grade wheat flour, having the cost remain almost the same, in an effort to add values to the products of which they raising the prices.

Panya Junya in Kashiba City, Nara Prefecture, also plans to raise the prices of their bread products. They are also making efforts to increase the values of its products while raising prices. They are doing so by using wheat produced by local farmers for example.

Bakery Quartet in Ota-ku, Tokyo, raised the prices of five or six bread items by about 5% this spring, but since it resulted in a decrease in both the number and the sales amount of items sold, they decided to suspend the price increase for now. They plan to raise the prices of the remaining products after observing the state of commodity prices and the growth of real wages during the fall and winter seasons.

Kawagoe Bakery Rakuraku in Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, also raised prices once in January of this year and plans to raise them again before the end of this year, but they are concerned that this will have negative impacts on the sales. However, they believe that it will be easier to gain consumers' understanding of the price increase with the wide media coverage of the social situation,

Bon Vivon in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, implemented a uniform price increase of about 5% for all products around April this year. At that time, the rate of price increase was not changed for each product, to avoid confusion among cash register staff. In October, the bakery plans to raise prices for the second time this year, this time by a slightly higher rate for each product, taking into account the increasing market prices of bread ingredients. The underlying idea is fair pricing of bread products.

The Mizube-no Saffron Abiko Shop in Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture, was relocated from Kashiwa City, Chiba Prefecture, and reopened last September. At that time, almost all products sold at the former shop in Kashiwa City were brought to the new shop with an average price increase of about 10%. As for new products, they priced them in line with the increasing prices of bread ingredients.

Petit Ange in Kunitachi City, Tokyo, raised prices twice last year and again this year in March and in July.In the price increase in July, they increased the prices of only 40% of their products. The bakery is not sure if they will raise prices for the remaining 60% this year, as they are afraid that raising prices any further will finally have bad effects on the sales.

Panja in Iruma City, Saitama Prefecture, implemented a price increase of about one-third of their main products in May of this year. The price increase range was not uniform, but varied by item. We raised the prices of standard items with high sales, such as shokupan bread and curry bread, in line with the increase in the prices of used ingredients.

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