On April 8, 2026, Kuradashi Inc., which operates a food-loss reduction service, released the results of its latest awareness survey covering 78 food-related businesses. According to the survey, while roughly 78.2% of businesses are already working on food-loss reduction, it became clear that two new major factors\u2014\"changes in demand due to rising prices\" and \"logistics constraints\"\u2014are increasing food loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This survey was conducted from January 28 to February 27, 2026, obtaining valid responses from 78 food-related businesses. It gathered wide-ranging input on the state of their food-loss reduction efforts, the motivations behind them, and the challenges they currently face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a key result, companies answering that their food-loss rate was \"under 1%\" rose 7 points from the previous survey to reach 28.2%, showing the fruits of reduction efforts in the numbers. At the same time, companies citing \"reducing disposal costs\" as a motivation for reduction were high at 85.3% (the most common), painting a picture of the reality that the wave of rising prices is changing corporate behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most notable finding in this survey is that \"logistics constraints\" were newly cited as a food-loss-increasing factor by 16.7% of businesses. In the previous 2024 survey, this response was zero. Behind the surge from \"zero\" to \"one in six companies\" in just two years is the 2024 problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the work-style reform related legislation that took effect in April 2024, truck drivers' annual overtime was capped at 960 hours. This shrank transport capacity and increased delivery delays and non-arrivals of fresh food. Vegetables and daily-delivery goods with short consumption and best-before dates can become subject to disposal with just a one-day delay in transport. Combined with rising logistics costs, this is dealing a direct blow to the management of food businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Businesses citing \"changes in demand due to rising prices\" as a food-loss factor stood at 83.3%, also a sharp increase of 27.8 points over the previous survey. When rising prices cause consumers to hold back on purchases, unsold stock at retail storefronts increases. Demand forecasting becomes harder, and the structure makes the chain of over-ordering leading to disposal more likely to occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even as the challenges grow more serious, the use of redistribution services as a countermeasure is expanding rapidly. The usage rate of services like Kuradashi that provide a sales venue for products nearing their best-before date reached 70.5%, up 13.08 points over the previous survey. With 94.9% of businesses evaluating them as \"capable of becoming a safety net for food-loss measures,\" they have entered a stage of having earned a certain level of trust within the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 52.5% of companies also adjust production volume or conduct markdown sales, and an approach combining multiple countermeasures is becoming the mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What these survey results show is the reality that the food-loss problem is not merely a matter of \"surplus inventory\" but a complex structural issue affected by macroeconomic factors such as logistics infrastructure constraints and price fluctuations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan's food loss came to roughly 4.64 million tons per year in fiscal 2023 (announced by the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries). Converted per person, this works out to the equivalent of one rice ball's worth of food being discarded every day. The government has set a target of reducing food loss by food businesses 60% from the 2000 level by fiscal 2030, but the new challenge of \"logistics constraints\" may make achieving it more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is also watching this problem closely, and it has entered a phase requiring policymaking that advances logistics efficiency and food-loss reduction in an integrated way. Along with the spread offood-loss reduction apps<\/a>like Too Good To Go, responding to logistics challenges will likely be the key going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This problem is directly linked to vegetable distribution as well. Fresh vegetables have shorter consumption dates than other foods, making them the items most susceptible to the effects of logistics delays and stagnation. If cases increase in which vegetables that farmers raised with great care are discarded just before reaching consumers, it will be a major blow to farm management as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Organizing the relationship between out-of-spec vegetables and food loss<\/a>has long been viewed as a problem, but with the addition of the logistics 2024 problem, a new phase is arriving in which even within-spec vegetables are exposed to disposal risk. We need to grasp these survey results as an occasion to review the entire food supply chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is expected as a countermeasure to logistics constraints is AI-based demand forecasting and delivery optimization. Several food manufacturers have begun introducing AI systems, and for certain products, results such as substantially lowering disposal rates are emerging. Building a data-sharing platform linking retail, manufacturers, and logistics is also an urgent task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food-loss reduction is not merely a story of cost reduction. It is a core SDGs challenge directly linked to reducing the burden on the global environment, strengthening food security, and stabilizing farm management. The fact that 78% of food businesses are working on loss reduction, even while facing the real walls of rising prices and the logistics problem, shows a shift in awareness within Japan's food industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source:<\/strong>Kuradashi survey, Jiji.com (April 8, 2026)<\/a>\uff0fThe background to the surge in global food waste costs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nImpact on vegetables and agricultural produce: new risks from the growing region to the dining table<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Outlook: linking technology and policy is the key<\/h2>\n\n\n\n