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The story
Record-breaking long rains and a lack of sunshine have driven up prices for leafy greens, with some supermarkets in Tokyo now selling a single head of napa cabbage for over ¥1,000. A TV Asahi News report captured shoppers out buying ingredients for hot pot being stunned by the prices, with one lamenting, “I can’t make nabe (hot pot).” On 5ch threads, some users shared workarounds like substituting cabbage bought earlier when prices were low, and predicted that prices would settle down after the New Year once growing regions shift northward. Others noted that taro, lotus root, and matsutake mushrooms are having bumper harvests, highlighting how the weather has hit different vegetables unevenly. Opinions were also split on whether any vegetable can really substitute for napa cabbage.
Fri, Oct 9, 1:56 PM
TV Asahi News
Record-breaking long rains and a lack of sunshine have sent vegetable prices soaring, especially for leafy greens. At some Tokyo supermarkets, a single head of napa cabbage now costs over ¥1,000.
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here
What people said
What are you, a kid?
still more than half left.
Yeah, peeling off leaves makes it last way longer.
It's dumb how cooking shows just slice the whole thing in half.
Hot pot is still a long way off — from Tokyo.
In western Japan it's already coat weather morning and night.
The supermarket right at the station has the same price.
When komatsuna is cheap it's ¥78, so that's double.
Lotus root's having a bumper crop too — and best of all, matsutake mushrooms had a huge bumper harvest.
This season's taro is really tasty.
Just gotta make do with what's available.
Re: #93
Nobody's buying perishables at a markup from some random nobody off the street.
That's probably daffodil… (´･ω･`) (daffodils look like garlic chives but are toxic)
Just don't eat it for a month, it'll come back down eventually.
A quarter head was about ¥198.
¥198 is actually generous — basically loss-leader advertised-special territory, like you'd see at an AEON-group store.
Even at usually-cheap grocery stores it's more like ¥280.
Since the cabbage price hike is making people avoid hot pot, the meat and fish meant for nabe are now half price.
If you can think of another dish to use them in, that's the move lol
It is a bit hot today.
The chill only hits late at night and in the morning, so it's not really hot pot season yet.
Historically and culturally, the point was to eat whatever's in season, cheap and delicious — but the media's lost the plot on that.
Travel/tourism shows will do 'seasonal flavors' segments, but studio-based shows will happily feature stuff that's out of season and sky-high in price as 'tonight's recommended dinner recipe' without batting an eye.
It takes 2 months to harvest, so you'd make it by New Year's Eve.
Hot pot is delicious with pretty much anything in it.
There's just nothing that can replace napa cabbage.
Cabbage or lettuce just isn't quite the same, right?
For longer-growing varieties it's more like 2.5 to 3 months — depends on how the current growth is going.
The November crop looks like it's taken a real beating from the rain.
Whatever's for January onward is probably getting planted right about now. The current crop's done for, so farmers will probably push hard to meet the surge in demand.
If people act like the dumb media and assume it's 'in season' from early October and eat hot pot nonstop, they'll just stop eating it from December through February.
It's only expensive because the region currently in shipping season got hit.
Once a different shipping season rolls around, it'll go back to being cheap as usual.
Growing regions shift northward, so once Tohoku starts shipping it'll probably drop sharply.
Looks like it'll be cheap from around next month through the New Year.
Japan is a long, narrow country, so shipping seasons shift a lot between the south and north.
If the south has a bad crop, you just wait for the north's shipping season — and vice versa.
Disasters don't wipe out the entire country at once, so honestly, keeping things as they are plus guaranteeing farmers' income would be totally fine.
It's obvious small and mid-sized farmers can't keep up, so subsidy-dependent farmers should just switch careers (we do have freedom of occupation) and big corporations should be allowed to move in.
Big companies could use biotech and AI for large-scale indoor farming and potentially stabilize the food supply.
Deregulate, let massive indoor farming operations happen, and have landowning farmers become shareholders instead.
If the law isn't changed right now, Japan might not even have a future a few years from now, let alone long-term.
There's no way a big company paying high salaries can beat on cost a farmer effectively earning just ¥10 an hour.
Background and Key Points
Leafy greens depend more heavily on sunlight than root vegetables do, making them more directly affected by the lack of sunshine caused by the long rains. Indeed, even within the thread, some users noted that root vegetables like taro and lotus root are having bumper harvests, showing that the weather’s impact varies a lot by vegetable type. Napa cabbage’s main growing regions also shift with the seasons — high-altitude areas like Nagano in summer and autumn, and lowland areas like Ibaraki and Aichi in winter — with production moving north and south accordingly. This price spike is largely because the region currently shipping cabbage was hit hard by the long rains, so prices could settle down once the shipping center shifts to a different region. Meanwhile, opinions in the thread were split over the “can’t make hot pot” reaction — whether other vegetables like cabbage can really substitute for napa cabbage, with some emphasizing napa cabbage’s distinctive flavor and resistance to falling apart when simmered, and others saying people are being too particular.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “[Napa Cabbage] Cabbage Tops ¥1,000 a Head as Long Rains and Lack of Sunshine Drive Up Leafy Green Prices — Customers Baffled, ‘Can’t Make Hot Pot’.”
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