Hope fades that trade pact could melt Japan butter shortage

TOKYO, Oct 30, (RTRS): Hopes look set to be dashed that a regional trade pact could end a butter shortage in Japan which has left shelves in some supermarkets empty and prompted others to ration customers to one pack per visit.

The Transpacific Partnership (TPP) deal agreed this month between Japan and other Pacific Rim governments does not do enough to loosen curbs on butter imports, with Tokyo wary of upsetting farmers the controls were designed to protect, said industry officials and analysts.

The butter shortage, which typically intensifies towards year-end as people make cookies and cakes for Halloween and Christmas, has been fuelled by a chronic lack of dairy farmers as the population ages and younger people move away from the countryside.

“I came here to buy butter to make Halloween cupcakes as I couldn’t find any at another store,” Yumi Kano, a mother of two small children, said at a supermarket in central Tokyo.

“Since last year, I’ve been trying to keep two packs of butter in our refrigerator.”

A prolonged butter shortage would be an embarrassment to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government which has been touting the benefits of TPP, saying it would allow consumers to buy diverse products from around the world at cheaper prices.

The latest butter deficit has already lasted around two years, with industry data showing consumers have been forking out roughly up to four times more than buyers abroad, while commercial users have been paying the highest prices in about three decades. A 200 gram pack cost about 450 yen ($3.70) this week in Tokyo.