The price of rice (if there is any)

As if climate change, economics and surprise tariffs weren’t enough, the sake industry now has a new challenge–will it be able to afford the rice it needs next brewing season, if it can even find it? 

Japanese households are currently up in arms over the surging price of table rice in a crisis affectionately nicknamed the “Reiwa Rice Riots“.

Shortages have pushed the price of 60 kg of table rice to JPY 24,006 before tax (25,927 with tax) in Jan 2025, then even further to JPY 24,523 (26,406 with tax) in Feb 2025. That equates to JPY 4,214 for a 5 kg bag, more than double the price in Apr 2024. 

Despite protectionist policies and a general distaste for overseas rice, Japan imported around 2 tonnes of from South Korea in March and 20 more are on the way. Some restaurants switched to US rice last year when prices first started to rise, and although the cost of imported rice has since doubled it’s still cheaper than domestic.

So, what has that got to do with sake, which is known for using sake-specific varieties of rice? (Which don’t even taste good as table rice, as shown by attempts to repurpose unused Yamada Nishiki during the pandemic.)

Data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries gave the price of a 60 kg bag of Yamada Nishiki as below JPY 24,000 between 2013 and 2023, with the same weight of Gohyakumangoku priced at JPY 16,000, and table rice costing somewhere between JPY 11,000 and 14,000 (all prices without tax).

And now that table rice is fetching prices equal to or even higher than the king of sake rice, it may leave sake brewers short of raw ingredients if farmers give up on growing fussier sake-specific varieties.

This has led some breweries to consider reducing or suspending production due to a forecast shortage of raw ingredients, including giant Kizakura in Kyoto and Hakkaisan in Niigata. Others, such as Satou Shuzo in Saitama, have given up on trying to get hold of the prefecture’s own sake-specific rice Sake Musashi.

Demand for sake rice for the 2025 brewing year is expected to increase to 82,000–85000 tons, up from 81,000–83000 tons in BY2024. However, it remains to be seen if the demand will be filled. Speaking at the International Wine Challenge (IWC) sake division judging in April 2025, Tsushima Kitahara (president of Yamanashi Meijo, makers of Shichiken, and president of the Sake Samurai Association) said prices for sake rice had risen by 25% the previous year and the increase was expected to reach 50% this year with shortages also predicted.

Possible shortages come as breweries are already coping with poor harvests and quality due to hot summers, and struggling with how to pass increased costs on to consumers. And even with higher prices for table rice, farmers are warning that higher costs for fuel and equipment mean they are still operating on tight profit margins.

The Japanese government reacted in March by releasing 210,000 tonnes of rice from emergency reserves intended for disasters or crop failure, but logistical issues meant that only 426 tonnes had reached supermarket shelves by the end of the month. There is also criticism of long-standing Japanese government policies to restrict production and stabilise prices that meant rice grown in some fields had to be used for processed food or animal feed.

Prefectural governments are also taking action, with Ehime setting aside JPY 23.62 million to subsidise the cost of sake rice by 10%, while Yamagata earmarked JPY 40.1 million to subsidise half the price increase for four prefectural sake rice varieties including Yukimegami and Dewa no Sato.

Yasushi Miwa, chief specialist of the private think-tank Japan Research Institute, even warned that the entire sake brewing industry could be destabilised. He also pointed out that very few farmers are able to grow sake rice, and that information and skills are not shared as effectively as for other agricultural products.

A sad and serious turn after the celebrations for traditional sake-making being registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, which was not even six months ago.

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“令和の米騒動”で酒造りがピンチに… (NHK News Web 24 Apr 2025, based on news broadcasts on 3 and 16 Apr 2025, Japanese)
“Sake brewers struggle to get ingredients as rice prices surge” Yoko Hibino (The Asahi Shimbun, 14 Apr 2025)
“Supply Shock: Japan’s Rice Shortage Shakes Tradition” (Supply Chain Digital, 23 Apr 2025)
I participated as an Associate Judge at this year’s IWC sake division judging.

As a former project manager, sounds like someone did not do enough risk analysis.

Seen how active the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives can be, I’m a bit surprised by the claim that farmers are not sharing information on growing sake-specific varieties. 

Some sake breweries are growing rice, such as the dozen or so members of the Farming and Brewing group (農！と言える酒蔵の会 in Japanese, literally translated as “Association of Breweries That Can Say 農” where the character means “agriculture” and is read “no”, making it a pun on a 1989 essay on US-Japan relations called “The Japan That Can Say No”.) I had a chance to visit their pop-up bar in Tokyo a few years ago, and even breweries that have been growing their own for some time such as Izumibashi are nowhere near being able to produce as much rice as they need.