Japanese homemaker Kirina Mochizuki has always considered okonomiyaki savory pancakes the ultimate comfort food: simple, satisfying and cheap.
These days, though, it's a struggle to get the dish, a favorite among Hiroshima natives like herself, on the table. With the price of cabbage - a key ingredient - tripling recently, Mochizuki makes daily trips to the supermarket in search of discounted produce, or resorts to using dried seaweed.
"I never imagined that okonomiyaki would become a delicacy," the mother-of-two said, adding she had also taken to re-growing leek in a glass of water using the usually discarded root base.
With inflation taking hold in Japan after a generation of stagnant prices, many consumers are facing a similar plight, and looking for creative solutions to ease the pain. Data on Friday showed the average price of cabbage more than tripling this month in the capital, Tokyo, from a year ago.
The Bank of Japan hiked interest rates to the highest in 17 years last week citing confidence in the outlook for salaries. But inflation-adjusted wages have fallen in 29 of the last 32 months while the Engel's coefficient, or the share of households' spending on food, hit a four-decade high last year.
The price of a head of cabbage reaching 1,000 yen in Tokyo - roughly equivalent to an hourly wage - had already made headlines even before Friday's data, and the central bank noted last week that rice would probably stay expensive until the spring of 2026. Wholesale rice prices surged 60% in December from the same period a year earlier.
As the price of agricultural products has risen, Japanese have also been eating less of them. The average intake of vegetables among Japanese adults fell to an all-time low in November, the most recent government data shows.
Meanwhile, cheap furikake, or dried condiments sprinkled on rice, are being used as a substitute for other dishes on the dinner table. Sales last year are expected to have reached a record high, according to research firm Fuji Keizai.
"A 10-yen rise in our daily goods might seem small but it adds up," Mochizuki said, noting that she had already shaved what she could from other spending.
Worried about the impact of rising prices on voter sentiment, the government last year compiled an economic stimulus package that includes cash payouts to low-income households.
And in a first, the farm ministry is considering drawing up new rules to allow the government to sell stockpiled rice to agricultural cooperatives with the aim of bringing down retail prices.
For YouTuber Kazuki Nakata, the recent price trends have proved to be a boon.
Having started indoor farming at home as a hobby during the pandemic, the 37-year-old now has nearly 90,000 subscribers eager to learn how to stretch out store-bought vegetables and grow new ones in containers of water, without soil.
"I've seen 4,500 new followers in the past two weeks," he told Reuters at his home in Kawasaki, outside Tokyo, this week.
Nakata quit his job at an electronics retailer in 2023 to focus on the 47 types of vegetables he currently grows all over his house. Everything from shiso leaves, onions and daikon radish thrive in empty plastic bottles, beer cans and even the basket of his bicycle.
Growing vegetables at home isn't without its challenges.
Nakata's family has had to sleep without air conditioning on sweltering summer nights, and his wife complains that she can't breast-feed her newborn in the living room because the curtains need to be open to ensure the leafy greens get their sunlight.
Still, with vegetable prices so high, Nakata says the sacrifices have paid off. He recently succeeded in cultivating a robust patch of cabbage leaves in a kitchen bowl using the inedible core and liquid fertilizers - the subject of his next video on YouTube.
"Home gardening has really helped us slash our spending on food, so I want to share my findings," he said.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
39 Comments
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Asiaman7
I have tended to multiple indoor and outdoor “farms” inside Tokyo, and I have never found them to result in much cost-savings, particularly after including all the related costs. Moreover, I was often left with oversupply, which led to me giving a lot away to colleagues, friends, and neighbors.
Perhaps I did benefit, however, from the goodwill generated.
sakurasuki
I hope they only farm daily vegetables that usually they got it from groceries, not "anything" else.
bo
Everyone should be encouraged to similar , and kits could be supplied to help people get started ,Its always the first step that stops people !
リッチ
There is no price savings growing yourself. Mass production allows cost savings. It’s an urban scam. Shop at supermarkets that provide discounted products and don’t shop at expensive ones. That is how you control costs. For example Life supermarket near me has lettuce at 429 yen. At Hanamasa it was 149 yen. Same goes for meats and fruit. When people want to shop like Japanese used to and go to 3 or 4 different markets then you will save. If you want a one stop shop, well you are going to pay a ton more than needed.
Aly Rustom
the gov needs to do something to combat these rising prices. One measure could be to halve both income and sales tax to cushion the blow this inflation is having. But they need to do something!
ifd66
Completely untrue.
We produce much of our own food, (veg, salad, fruit, eggs, goat milk...) and for easy grow salads (lettuce, rocket, spinach, kale etc) a 250~350 yen packet of seeds, can give you a lot of food.
ifd66
And I know I will be down thumbed but food prices are too cheap.
Better quality food fresh, local etc at higher prices will be healthier, lead to less food waste, and give farmers a fairer return.
BertieWooster
I think it's doing all it can to raise prices. That way they get more tax. And they need more tax because they are overspending.
GBR48
You can actually save money, as long as you do what Nakata does, not spending cash on new pots, bags of compost and the like, and sharing seed. But you really need an allotment or a large garden to give you several months supply of easy, compact crops like tomatoes, runner beans, broad beans, strawberries, courgettes, cut-and-come-again salad crops or onions. You can grow a fair bit on a balcony if you are careful, and most of your herb needs in pots, even with just a window ledge.
Most people grow fruit and veg because they enjoy it and to help their children understand where food comes from. Any savings are a welcome bonus. Grow lights, old fish tanks or mini greenhouses can be used to increase light and humidity indoors. Living with plants can require some accommodation. My French windows remain closed through the colder months to protect tender species from cold blasts.
Most plants dislike central heating in winter - it dries them out. If you can spray them, do. Make sure they are not over- or under-watered by feeling the weight of the pot. Grow plants that need humidity in your bathroom.
Spray/Water with tepid water, not ice cold water straight out of the tap. To avoid fungus gnats, top your pots with horticultural grit or just some random pebbles.
Sharing seed with friends saves cash. You can plant pepper and tomato seeds now in the UK and most likely Japan, as they grow slowly at first. It is worth doing a bit of online research and picking varieties that are fast growing and reliable.
With a balcony or more space, get yourself a compost bin and turn your green waste (with some damp cardboard or newspaper) into high quality compost. And grow some flowers too. They will attract pollinators to your veg and cheer you up.
We will all have to get used to spending a larger % of our income on food in the future. It is very rewarding to grow your own vegetables (and flowers). And if you have the space, plant some fruit trees on dwarfing rootstocks. There is nothing quite like home grown food.
YeahRight
The government and JA are laughing all the way to the bank. They are getting more money while the public is being screwed.
GuruMick
What about the economics of working at a salaried rate for those hours you spend doing all the home veggie stuff.
Not rocket science...simple economics.
wallace
Local people in our area grow vegetables and sometimes share them with us when they have too much.
kurisupisu
So, he now pays his electricity bill with cabbage and carrots?
Blacksamurai
Another 'trend story' that won't go far. Japan had years of deflation, now is the correction whether people like it or not. You can't live in a first world economic powerhouse like Japan and expect to forever get 100 yen onigiri, 250 yen sandwiches, 100 yen chicken pieces, 50 yen - 100 yen vegetables, bento from the conbini or supermarket for 300 yen etc.
Even the prices now are lower than what was being charged in South Korean supermarkets and conbini over 10 yrs ago - and their salaries and wages were much lower than Japan's at that time. Sure Japan's wages and salaries are lower than in US states like New York, much lower than in all states of Australia, lower than in the UK and Canada if you're looking at what's usual as we know instead of these 'Average salaries' tables.
But deflationary prices for everyday goods and consumables stayed the same for decades in Japan. The current foreign resident 'shock' at the cost of living says more about the 250,000 yen or less many westerners are prepared to take as a 'living salary' in Japan just to live here doing low paid jobs like English teaching in an industry that's going down the drain.
Aly Rustom
I agree Bertie
Lindsay
In Singapore they have turned the rooftops of apartment blocks into community gardens. It’s definitely an idea that would work in Tokyo.
Blacksamurai
Good luck to Nakata making his wife and baby try to sleep in sweltering, humid summer night temperatures because the air conditioning can't be on because of his little farm. Living in darkness and being unable to breastfeed the baby in the living room due to the curtains having to be open also doesn't sound good.
Sometimes you've just got to spend money to be comfortable and also save time - time is money. And Nakata quit his job to do this - youtube wouldn't be paying what he got before. Sounds like one of those proverbs about saving a few yen and spending thousands to do it.
grc
A perfect example of what should be a negative story (profiteering, lack of food self-sufficiency and Byzantine supply chains) being made into a heroic story of Plucky Little Japan. No wonder outsiders think the place is Nirvana
wallace
A good first step, abolish sales tax on all fresh foods.
kohakuebisu
Just a warning but seeds planted indoors need to be in a very sunny location and regularly rotated. They will naturally grow toward the light, which indoors is to the side and not above. It is a recipe for weak "leggy" seedlings. You will get stronger plants growing em outside in a greenhouse or cold frame.
Since solar panels are getting cheaper, I wonder why lettuce etc. isn't grown more in shipping containers, prefab sheds, and the like. About ten years ago, this was said to be 30% more expensive than growing in fields, but panels, LED lights, batteries etc. are cheaper now. With a closed hydroponics system, many efficiencies can be made, and none of it is weather affected. This is for compact plants of course, like lettuce, herbs, cherry tomatoes etc. You can't use it for cabbages. I would have thought indoor growing would cap how expensive lettuce can become.
We get tons of snow and can get frosts as late as mid May. We grow stuff but only in summer when it is abundant and cheap in the shops. I like doing it and feel guilty if I don't, like I'm a failure as a veggie patch owning inaka person, but it doesn't save any money.
Zaphod
I think this home gardening is great, but I very much doubt it results in much cost savings. Check out how much food you consume in a day and compare that to the amount the window sill can can produce in a day...
When I was a kid, my grandmother had always chives, parsley, tomatos etc. growing on the balcony. But I think the idea was to these things fresh at any time, and not to save large amounts of money.
iron man
gardens can do it, mowing a stretch of grass (ok for compost), or spending the same energy time cultivating the ground for your foods? watch/ netflix all day or get ur hands dirty. no one answer. I visited some roof gardens with genuine interest. Thel ifts bored me sleepy. then tripping over compost bags and controlling the desire of what to do with the piles of plastic pots. but a great family environment. each to their own, If only I had a garden. I missed something. when did GST get applied to fresh foods? so jpn tax man now eats green onions? Do restaurants also pay?
Zaphod
kohakebisu
Are they really? Think of the miniscule amount of energy they produce and the environmental impact when they turn into toxic waste after their short lifetime.
Fundamentally, large scale of solar panels means just supporting dirty mining and polluting production in China... a case of "nimby".
wallace
In Nagano, at the family house, we had a patch of land the size of a small rice field. I grew enough vegetables for most of the year.
ian
You can obviously save doing little practical things like this
Blacklabel
I don’t see this as a positive story when people are accepting of a high tax government providing them such a low quality of life.
David Brent
Another “end-stage capitalism horror episode repackaged as a quirky and heartwarming story”.
John-San
Gardening in your aparto tips. Florescence lighting 30 cm above your medium helpduring the night. As they grow keep the fluorescent lights 30 to 40 cm above plants. Hot water bottles under your medium at night help keep the medium warm and promote growth. In the morning move onto your balcony. If balcony is on the shaded side place mirrors around your plants. Fluorescent lighting cost little to run. Grow lights ( high power sodium) are expensive to run. With vine like Tomatoes you can stand the fluorescent lights beside the vine keeping at lease 30cm away from foliage. Keeping the medium between 23 c to 30c never over 30c just use a thermometer. You had reflective materials around your plants but you have use sunlight as much as the aparto can provide for good results good luck if you if you take up growing in your aparto. Herds also grow good using the above method
WA4TKG
And the rest of the time you were buried in snow
wallace
Nagano winters are deep snow of 1-3 meters. Good for burying vegetables in the ground and will still be fresh when I get back from snowboarding.
wallace
Growing your vegetables or grains. Baking your bread. Or picking grapes on a French wine farm or olives in Italy. It changes how we think and feel about food and what farmers go through to bring food to our tables. The activity is as important as the produce made.
Aoi Azuuri
"enduring is virtue" "device, device, more device".
It's like such wartime about 80 years before.
People never criticize or change LDP regime who caused drastic price hike but does nothing to it, and try to respond by enduring or devicing as virtue.
So, government does nothing, prices of food and daily necessities continue to increase, and difficulties to people also continues.
Namahage
Must be a fair few JA fans on here, judging by the downvotes!
ian
Who/what are JA fans?
wallace
Last year the vegetable allotments were seriously affected by the weather and climate and an increase in bugs
Mocheake
I've been growing fruits and vegetables inside, outside and on my roof for decades. Really good for combating boredom and stress too. I feel like the are my children.
bass4funk
We have a large garden and grow a ton of veggies, but for me, I need my peppers, I have a pepper tree and grow 8 different peppers because I can’t get them in Japan, so 12 years ago I decided to grow my own, because we eat serious spicy foods. Jalapeños, Habaneros, Trinidad Scorpions, red potatoes, white onions and Spanish garlic, best feeling in the world.
3RENSHO
"Who/what are JA fans?"
Possibly, it refers to Japan Agricultural Cooperatives... (農業協同組合, Nōgyō Kyōdō Kumiai), also known as Nōkyō (農協) or JA Group, refers to the national group of 694 regional co-ops in Japan.
Ghibtonbo
I know nothing about that intaking vegetable of Japanese has been decreased. By the way the government should support agricultural industry to be able to do inside-farming. That investment will spread the business choices for farmer and it may have potential as the means of bailing out them.