Panic buying continues apace in Tokyo, with food and daily necessities still in short supply after the massive earthquake in northeastern Japan disrupted the supply chain.
Panic buying continues apace in Tokyo, with food and daily necessities still in short supply after the massive earthquake in northeastern Japan disrupted the supply chain.
Despite escaping with little structural damage, the capital has been suffering from energy woes in the wake of the March 11 disaster.
Distribution has been severely disrupted by both a shortage of gas and rotating blackouts designed to compensate for the shortfall of power in Tokyo.
Faced with increasingly bare shelves, shoppers panicked and scrambled to stock up on food and whatever they could find at supermarkets and convenience stores.
To meet the spike in demand, manufacturers have begun ramping up output, and if the fuel shortage is addressed, stock should be back to normal after Tuesday.
Rice, noodles and pre-prepared food had all disappeared by 9 a.m. Saturday at the Tatsumi outlet in Toyosu, Koto Ward.
"As soon as we get a delivery, all the goods are snapped up immediately," said the head of the outlet. "Even soy sauce, salt and other seasonings are in short supply." According to the man, restaurants are also buying in bulk, driven by the unpredictability of the disrupted supply line.
The scale of hoarding in Tokyo has surprised manufacturers and retailers, who say it has far exceeded their expectations.
Renho, state minister of consumer affairs, urged shoppers to "buy only what you need," when she visited an outlet of the Ito-Yokado supermarket chain in Tokyo on Thursday.
The store put out twice as much rice and four times as much bottled water as normal, but they were outstripped by demand.
Managers at the outlet say demand for rice and bottled water are 10 and 26 times higher than normal, respectively.
Senior officials of a leading retailer urged top executives of a major beverage maker to step up production in a meeting at the former's headquarters in Tokyo Thursday.
It seems to have become a vicious cycle. "Consumers have become alarmed because goods on store shelves are scarce," said an official with the retailer. "If they carry on seeing bare shelves, the hoarding will continue."
Executives of the beverage maker said 50,000 cases of bottled water had to be set aside for quake victims in northeastern Japan at the request of the government.
Supply and demand were severely out of balance after the quake struck. The damage done to the beverage maker's factory in the quake meant its capacity was slashed by two-thirds.
Yet, with retailers ordering three times as much as before, the company simply cannot keep up.
Although some food manufacturers have already moved to expand production, the supply end is still being held by the fuel shortage. Trucks cannot transport food products even if they are ready for shipment at factories, and many factories are finding it hard to procure the ingredients or materials necessary to make their products.
"The products are there, but we cannot transport them," said an official in the distribution industry, echoing the view of many others in the industry.
The official said that as soon as the shortage of fuel is eased, supply will return to normal.
The problem of empty shelves has been exacerbated by rotating blackouts introduced by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the embattled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. TEPCO initiated the rotating power cuts in Tokyo and other parts of the Kanto region after many of its plants, including thermal plants, were affected by the quake.
Ryoshoku Ltd., a leading food wholesaler, said that it received three to five times as many orders for instant noodles and bottled water from supermarkets and convenience stores in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
But many workers are arriving late for shipping products from storage points and other work due to curtailed train services caused by the blackouts.
Another factor causing scarcities is that supermarkets and convenience stores have moved to minimize their inventories in recent years.
In the past, they used to have storages next to their outlets, but now they place orders with wholesalers and manufacturers for only certain popular goods on a piecemeal basis. For example, a typical convenience store will get box lunches delivered three times a day. This means that any disruption in the distribution network hits them hard, leaving their shelves bare.