Price Increases Planned for over 7,000 Food Items Next Year

Tokyo, Dec. 21 (Jiji Press)--Another wave of price hikes will hit Japanese households early next year, with markups of 7,152 food products having already been scheduled for January-April, up some 50 pct from a year earlier, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said in a survey report Wednesday.

Prices for more than 10,000 food items are expected to go up by next month, the private credit research firm also said.

The firm's latest survey, which covered 105 major food makers' price increase plans, found the number of scheduled hikes for the first four months of next year grew 2,727 from the previous survey in late November.

Amid higher raw materials prices and rising logistics costs, an increasing number of companies plan to raise prices for products for the second time or carry out so-called stealth price hikes by reducing product sizes while keeping their prices unchanged.

Prices will be raised again for many frozen foods. Those for seasoning products, such as soy sauce, and wine will get higher as well.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]