Naphtha shortages in Japan

As someone who grew up eating Calbee snacks, I think they’ll be fine.

People from my generation aren’t buying Calbee because the bag is colorful. They’re buying it because it’s Calbee and they already know what they’re getting. The packaging could be black and white and I’d still recognize it instantly.

The only people I could see being briefly confused are younger consumers. Japanese packaging tends to be very colorful, so we’re all conditioned to identify products partly by color. But people adapt quickly. In fact, a black-and-white Calbee bag might end up standing out more on a crowded supermarket shelf than yet another brightly colored package.

There’s also a chance this ends up being a net positive. If simpler packaging lowers costs and sales stay the same, why go back? Japanese consumers are feeling inflation more than they have in decades, and companies are under pressure too. Cutting costs in a place customers barely notice seems a lot smarter than shrinking the product or raising prices again.

As a result of the Takaichi administration directing subsidies exclusively toward gasoline, oil companies have stopped prioritizing naphtha production, leading to a shortage of daily necessities. The fact that Calbee’s snack packaging has turned monochrome is a direct consequence of this. The Takaichi administration attempted to pressure Calbee into reversing this decision.

What is even more alarming is that more than half of the Japanese public supports the Takaichi administration, which is implementing such absurd policies.

They had a chance to embrace the black/white medium for somethink striking and attention grabbing but looks like a bad photocopy of the original packaging.

I don't know Calbee snacks. We grew up with different chemicals in this area.

BUT. I must say, the packaging looks so much better in black and white.

It makes me think it's an honest product, whatever that means. Good feeling. Put your name on it, black on white. Sell it.

Hn has at least one article in the top 25 related to Japan every day, even about the most obscure topics.

Buried near the end: Nisshin Seifun Welna stopped printing cooking time on their spaghetti packaging tape. There's a Japanese consumer somewhere squinting at the package trying to remember if it was 8 mins or 10 mins.

This is what "globalized supply chain" looks like up close.

Little sympathy for Japan. Take a page out of the USA playbook and start hauling in Russian dark ships filled with Naphtha. They have an entire naval fleet at idle while their internal needs get worse.

Very nicely factual and non-clickbait article for once.

Those bags look pretty good to me no nonsense color.

After studying Japanese language and culture for the last 15 years, and spending about 6 months there in total, I would say they have a massive over-packaging problem in general.

I've never seen a place throw away more plastics than in Japan.

If the current oil situation forces a reworking of this system, I'd say all in all, that's an upside.

Maybe the point of the Iran war was to boost the US economy, relative to East Asia, which is dependent on Middle Eastern oil and gas, while the US is an exporter.

I mean look who benefits from this, arms companies and oil/gas companies are having a bonanza.

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sumsung.com

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Do we say ‘hail corporate’ here too? Because… this feels a lot like viral marketing for whatever this brand is to me.