Food & Climate
The government will announce new criteria to reduce food waste in Japan by changing its approach to food expiration dates in March.
Now, Japan’s government has announced it’ll take the next step in its battle against waste, according to a report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.
Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA), as reported by Asahi Shimbun, is setting new criteria for both expiry dates (shouhi kigen), the date before which food can be safely consumed; and freshness dates, the date for eating the food at peak flavor.
Safety coefficient closer
The CAA will specify that manufacturers should use a safety coefficient closer to 1 in their freshness and expiration dating tests, which will lengthen the expiry date on most current packaging. The safety coefficient provides a safety buffer by shortening a product’s measured expiration date. For example, if a product has a 10-day shelf life, a safety coefficient of 0.7 means the expiration date is seven days.
Additionally, the government will specify that businesses that use freshness dates make clear what the date means so that consumers know food is still safe to consume past that date. It’s also encouraging businesses to put recommendations on packaging for how food can be kept consumable past its freshness date.
The concrete guidelines are still being firmed up in a committee that is currently meeting up to March. The government expects to announce the changes that month.
Food waste in Japan has a long battle. Japan has long ranked high on the United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) Food Waste Index.
In the most recent 2024 report, UNEP says it wastes around 64kg of food per capita – more than the US at 59kg. It’s a somewhat embarrassing development for a country that prides itself on a culture of mottainai, or not being wasteful.
As Deeper Japan discusses, there are multiple reasons for this contradiction. Structural issues and the drive to maximize profits play a role, for example.
Ide says Japanese companies, which are inherently risk-averse, prefer these strict dates in order to avoid potential claims around food-borne illnesses. Similarly, most restaurants here refuse to let customers take food home with them due to fears of food poisoning.
One of the causes of food waste to date also is that the retail industry has followed a business practice known as the “one-third rule,” in which deliveries are not accepted if one-third of the time between the production date and the expiration date has been exceeded. For example, if a food product has a shelf life of six months from the date of manufacture, the manufacturer must deliver the product within two months, according to “Nippon“.
The target of reducing of food waste in Japan
To its vast credit, government has taken these issues seriously for years and has worked overtime to reduce food waste in Japan.
As a result, according to UNEP, the country has reduced its food waste from 2008 to 2019 by 29%. As of the 2024 report, Japan has reduced total food waste by 31%.
There’s still work to be done, however. 33% of the food waste in Japan is considered edible. That makes the changes to expiration dates an important step towards achieving further reductions, according to “Unssn-Japan”.
In fiscal 2022, Japan achieved a food waste reduction target it set for fiscal 2030. Businesses worked to reduce waste by relaxing delivery deadlines and extending expiration dates.
In fiscal 2022, the estimated food waste in Japan decreased year on year by 510,000 tons, for a total of 4.72 million tons (2.36 million tons from businesses and 2.36 million tons from households), thus achieving the government’s target of limiting waste to 4.89 million tons eight years ahead of schedule.
The 4.72 million tons of food waste announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries and the Ministry of the Environment is equivalent to a per-capita waste of around 103 grams per day, which amounts to an annual per-capita total of 38 kilograms.
The government had set the target for fiscal 2030 of reducing the amount of food waste in Japan to 4.89 million tons (2.73 million tons from businesses and 2.16 million tons from households) as compared to the fiscal 2000 level of 9.8 million tons (5.47 million tons from businesses and 4.33 million tons from households). Retailers and product manufacturers have been working to relax delivery deadlines and extend expiration dates, leading to a significant decrease in the volume of business waste generated, which in turn has contributed to the overall decrease in volume. The amount of household waste generated in fiscal 2022 only decreased year on year by 80,000 tons, however, falling 200,000 tons short of the reduction target.