Bento, boxed lunches, are practically a symbol of Japanese cuisine itself. A self-contained meal of rice and a number of meat, fish, or vegetable side dishes, they’re a quick and convenient way to get a balanced meal, easily portable back to your office or home, and their packaging means you can even set the box down on your lap and eat it on a park bench if you don’t have access to a table or desk when you’re hungry.
However, these are tough times for bento shops. According to business research organization Teikoku Databank, 22 bento shops filed for bankruptcy between January and May of this year. Not only is that more than the same period for 2024, if this pace keeps up for the rest of the year it’ll be the highest annual number of bento shop bankruptcies Teikoku Databank, whose figures go back to 2010, has ever observed.
So what’s causing this? The researchers offer a few different explanations. Large orders of premium-priced bento for events such as business meetings, weddings, and funerals are down, but that’s really more of a gradual societal trend away from serving fancy bento at such gatherings. People working from home also means less demand from office workers buying bento as an alternative to waiting for a seat at crowded business district restaurants during the lunch rush, but that wouldn’t explain why we’re seeing more bento shop bankruptcies in 2025 than we did during the pandemic, when even more people were teleworking.
So really, it would seem that the biggest factor that Teikoku Databank mentions is rising costs for ingredients, especially rice. While bento can have all sorts of different side dishes, rice is the one common element they all have. If you’ve got no rice, you’ve got no bento, and with Japan currently grappling with the most sudden rice price increases in a generation, it’s having a major effect on bento bottom lines.
What makes the situation especially difficult is that even though bento are widely liked in Japan, most of them aren’t necessarily loved. While special regional bento, sometimes with higher price tags, are popular with travelers as a novelty or special-occasion meal, when it comes to ordinary, everyday bento, you won’t find nearly as many passionate fans as you will for things like ramen or beef bowls. Convenience and affordability are often the bigger parts of bento’s appeal for would-be regular customers, so passing on increased ingredient costs as higher bento prices can erode demand, since there might not be such strong loyalty to how the food tastes, even if it does taste pretty good.
That’s putting bento shops in a situation similar to the one being faced by Japan’s biggest curry rice restaurant chain. Their food hasn’t traditionally been seen as a premium product, so if they raise their prices very much a significant number of customers are likely to say “Eh, in that case I’ll pass,” but keeping their prices low is making it difficult for many bento shops to make a profit.
That doesn’t mean it’s bad news all around for bento shops, however. According to Teikoku Databank’s researchers, 45 percent of bento shops had an increase to their profits in 2024. However, 30.2 percent saw their profits shrink, and 21.7 percent were operating in the red.
Contributing to this feast-or-famine status is that larger bento shop chains are in a better position to manage their inventories to reduce losses from unsold bento or diversify their sales networks to tap into more pools of demand. Those are more difficult for smaller local bento shops to do, though, and so they’re the ones who’re facing the most danger in Japan’s new dining landscape.
Source: Teikoku Databank via Yahoo! Japan News via Hachima Kiko
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© SoraNews24
26 Comments
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John
they should try to put edible food in the bento boxes. Almost 50% of the box content is usually inedible.
Harry_Gatto
Nonsense. You're either buying from the wrong place or doing a bit more Japan bashing. Most bento shops sell good food.
Peter14
Love ekiben's. So much choice it can be hard to choose.
GuruMick
And the plastic waste ....hard to complain about that
kohakuebisu
I would expect everything in the pictured bento to be reheated frozen food. The breaded fried thing, the hamburg steak, the boiled veggies, the grilled fish, and the tamago yaki.
Once upon a time, such frozen foods were only available at commercial suppliers, but you can find many of them in regular supermarkets now. Gyomu Suupaa, Ramu, etc. will likely sell all of them.
So you can pay someone 600 yen to make you frozen food, or you can prepare a selection more to your liking at home. If its deep fried food like karaage, do it in the grill or air fryer and it'll come out good. Microwave only and it will be soggy.
A good ekiben or depa-chika bento will be much higher quality for a higher price. It will not be them going out of business.
Peter14
Always with the negative. A glass is half empty kind of guy it seems.
Cant say anything positive about bento or ekiben's? Nothing at all?
DanteKH
Common. Bentos are good and healthy, if you buy the proper ones.
Sadly more and more small companies like this are going to bancroupt. The purchasing power of the Japanese people and residents is lowering year by year due to significant decrease of the real salary, rampant inflation, weak Yen and Economy, etc. More and more are trying to save and spending is reduced day by day...
tora
if they can just hold on for a few more weeks. Rice @1800 for 5KG, albeit 5 years old, will be coming online.
sakurasuki
At least Japanese business would rather go bankrupt than cutting corners, which can lead to another issues. Especially in food business.
wallace
We like the occasional Bento from the local store, and it gives me a break from the kitchen. I like croquettes, fried chicken, and sweet and sour Chinese style.
ClippetyClop
Japanese bentos are fantastic. I used to order Norikara bentos for my customers, but the price went up from 700 yen to nearly 1000. They are a hearty feast and still good value at that price.
I found a retired local lady who makes the most exquisite and and delicious bentos for a few hundred yen more. Seasonal and imaginative ingredients. And she delivers them to the trailhead.
So I suppose I'm part of the blame for shops closing.
Garlic eater
How about replacing the rice with cheaper substitutes like barley or lentils? Barley, for example, has more fiber than white rice, and is good for gut health and lowering cholesterol, it has a mild flavor (similar to rice), and can even be cooked like rice. Lentils are high in protein, fiber and iron, very cheap, and can be cooked by simple boiling with no need to soak them. Who knows, maybe metabolic syndrome would decline if these substitutes became more popular.
HopeSpringsEternal
Fewer domestic business and tourist travelers, explains in large part why demand is dropping, as you guessed it, companies and families both 'tightening' the belt due to inflation and yen real asset purchasing power collapse.
Turns out aging depopulating countries eat less too!
bass4funk
Maybe they should put them in wooden or metal boxes?
HopeSpringsEternal
Take out never meant to be environmental, as the idea is convenience, but as customers not sitting in restaurants, taking up space, requiring energy, etc., maybe obento's not so bad for the environment, from a holistic viewpoint?!
GuruMick
Bass ....wooden boxes were used in the past.
Peter...plastic pollution is one of the top ten pollution issues facing the planet . Do you ever shop in a Japanese store ?
Disgraceful plus willful avoidance.
None of this is new or controversial....but hey, Japan is fun eh ?
Peter14
I did when I was there. Lots of food waste as well as plastic, not disagreeing on that point. But there are options that can be used if they choose to change, and the contents are still bloody Oishii.
GuruMick
I am old enough to remember Bali food being on banana leaves .....maybe Japan could design seaweed based containers that breakdown naturally
Negative Nancy
I used to buy bentos regularly, but I've noticed a drop in quality. The cuts of meat or fish seem to be getting worse, and there are more and more padding bits like soggy spaghetti. At one time, I would have recommended to get a higher grade one from a department store or an ekiben, but I'm not going to pay 1200 yen plus for that.
HopeSpringsEternal
People enjoying their obento outside a restaurant, like on a Shinkansen, environmental in reality, not wasting energy, plus plastic recycling constantly improving etc.
Environment a non-issue, as real 'cost' is unhealthy food destroying human health, obento far healthier than most.
No accident Japanese healthier than most, obento doing its part, great example of healthy fast food, hopefully the unhealthy foreigners visiting Japan learn to eat obento!
HopeSpringsEternal
All these 'natural' packing ideas, are pie in the sky fantasy, as they're simply a great way to spread viruses, food poisoning, etc. Again, the real cost is human health
Silvafan
Rice! It all leads back to rice!
falseflagsteve
Only bentos you’ll find me eating is Fray Bentos, lol
wallace
Japanese Bento is far healthier than Fray Bentos tinned pies. For example.
Fray Bentos steak and gravy.
Water, Beef (17%), Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Palm Oil, Modified Maize Starch, Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Onion Powder, Barley Malt Extract, Tomato Paste, Flavouring, Yeast Extract, Chicory Extract, Stabiliser (Xanthan Gum), Beef Extract, Sugar, Colour (Plain Caramel),
falseflagsteve
Wallace
I eat one Bentos pie a year so I’m fine, never eat Bento, no way Pedro!
wallace
Why? They are a great choice, and there are so many, including vegetarian.