＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
1. The niche industry of “clothing inventory disposal businesses”
Recently, there was some interesting news. It was about “inventory disposal companies” that buy unsold “brand clothing” for about 10% of the retail price, remove the brand tags, and sell them for about 20% of the retail price.
They are probably one of the “junk purchasers” that have become popular recently, but there aren’t many similar businesses that specialize in clothing, so perhaps they could be called a “niche industry.”
The company featured in the news has an astonishing 300,000 to 400,000 pieces of clothing in stock at any one time in its warehouse. It is said that 5 million pieces of clothing are brought in annually from about 600 companies, including apparel companies and factories.
It is said that 1 billion new clothes are discarded every year because they cannot be sold, including some from famous, popular brands.
It’s true that department stores and boutiques always have a lot of clothes lined up, but even though it’s none of my business, I sometimes worry about how much they are actually selling.
There must have been people who bought women’s summer clothes at the regular price right after they went on sale at a department store, only to find them on sale shortly thereafter at a 20% or 30% discount, making them feel like they have lost money. Recently, it seems that “sales” are starting earlier and earlier.
2. Convenience store initiatives to combat food waste, such as advance orders and time sales
Food products are also produced in large quantities, so “unsold” products inevitably occur. Foods with long expiration dates are not so bad, but for foods sold in convenience stores, a large amount of them are disposed of.
The amount of “onigiri” (rice balls), “obento” (boxed lunches), and other food items discarded at convenience stores nationwide due to expiration of their expiration dates amounts to 400 to 600 tons per day. This “food loss” is a very big problem.
In supermarkets and independent stores, you often see unsold products being sold at reduced prices as “clearance items” before they are thrown away, but this is not often seen in convenience stores.
This seems to be due to previous guidance from the headquarters of a major convenience store chain that discouraged “clearance sales.”
A Supreme Court ruling ruled that such “guidance” is “illegal,” but in reality, this appears to be quite difficult to implement, given the balance of power between convenience store headquarters and convenience store owners who have franchise agreements.
<Added 8/15/2019> FamilyMart increases profits by 70% by taking pre-orders for eel bento lunches, reducing waste costs
The Kyodo News article dated 8/15 reports as follows. We hope this trend will spread.
FamilyMart revealed on the 15th that as part of its efforts to reduce food waste, it began selling eel bento lunches on Doyo no Ushi no Hi (July 27th) by reservation only, and that this resulted in an average 70% increase in store profits compared to the previous year, when reservations and in-store sales were combined.
Sales fell by about 20%, but disposal costs were significantly reduced, boosting profits.
In April of this year, FamilyMart introduced a reservation-only system for three items – ehomaki, eel bento lunches, and Christmas cakes – and verified its effectiveness for the first time.
As a result of achieving both reduced waste and increased profits for franchisees, it is possible that reservation-only sales of seasonal products, which are only available for a few days, may spread to all convenience stores.
<Added 9/7/2019>
It has been reported that FamilyMart will be holding a time sale on room temperature prepared foods from 6:00 to 10:00 starting in September 2019.
It is a welcome development that the company has recently been proactively working to combat food waste.
<Added 2020/11/2>
It has been reported that Lawson and KDDI have jointly begun testing a service that delivers discount sales information to smartphones after 5pm.
It is welcome that both companies are actively working to combat food waste.
3. The reason for food waste at hamburger shops
Even at hamburger restaurants like McDonald’s, hamburgers that are prepared in advance to keep customers from waiting are discarded after a “certain period of time” set by company regulations has elapsed.
Since this would be a waste, one option is to reuse it as feed, but creating that route would be too time-consuming and costly, so it is not realistic.
Also, the number of hamburgers prepared and stored is likely based on the store’s past sales, so the “waste rate” is unlikely to be very high, and it seems unavoidable.
It may be that they are trying not to inconvenience customers by running out of stock, or that they are trying to sell as much as possible, or both, but it seems that many items are discarded anyway.
4. A niche industry selling “expired food”
However, in the food industry too, the following “niche industries” are emerging.
There are vending machines that sell canned drinks that are close to their expiration date at a very low price.
However, although it can’t be helped since they are cheap, if they are left unsold, there is a good chance that they will end up “expired”…
It seems that expired food products (not “expired by consumption”) are also sold on Rakuten Ichiba. In this case, since the products are clearly marked as “expired,” they must be so-called “products with a reason” for being sold. Many of them seem to be preserved foods for disaster prevention.
According to a survey on food waste conducted by Rakuten Insight in September 2019, 87% of people said they would buy products with a close expiration date if they were discounted.
The reasons given (multiple answers allowed) were “because it’s a good deal” at about 80%, while 44% said “because it helps reduce food waste.”
“KURADASHI.JP” is a popular online shopping site that specializes in selling cheap food items that are close to expiry.
The site was launched in February 2015 with the aim of reducing food waste, and the number of members has now reached 75,000, seven times the number four years ago.
The event is sponsored by famous manufacturers and food trading companies such as Ajinomoto Frozen Foods, Maruha Nichiro, Toyo Suisan, Ito En, Sapporo Beer, and Kokubu Group Headquarters, but another reason for its popularity is that a portion of the sales is donated to social contribution organizations that work towards environmental conservation and welfare.
By the way, have you ever heard of the term “food bank”? The first food bank was St. Mary’s Food Bank, established in the United States in 1967 (later renamed Second Harvest, and now known as Feeding America).
In Japan, there are organizations with the name of a region after “Food Bank XX,” such as “Second Harvest Kyoto” and “Food Bank TAMA.” “Food Bank TAMA” is an NPO with the slogan “Donate food to those in need instead of ‘throwing it away!'”
They call for donations of “food that has not yet expired” from food-related companies, farmers, and individuals.
This is an initiative that aims to link food waste with the problem of people living in poverty and find a solution to the problem.
5. It is time to aim for a society of moderate production, moderate consumption, and minimal waste
In response to the “Income Doubling Plan” put forward by Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, the phrase “Consumption is a virtue” was awarded the 1959 Buzzword of the Year Award. This phrase symbolizes the arrival of a mass consumption society.
However, I feel like we are approaching a turning point soon. I think it is time to aim for a society with “moderate production, moderate consumption, and minimal waste.”