As rice prices have continued to rise since the year before last, fried foods have been avoided in boxed lunches and restaurants, and breadcrumb production in 2025 decreased. Total production of dry breadcrumbs and fresh breadcrumbs, as well as for commercial and household use, was hit hardest in August, when the country was gripped by extreme heat, falling 11% year on year.
In the October 2025 revision, the government selling price for imported wheat was lowered, and flour prices for milling companies also declined.
However, many member companies of the National Federation of Breadcrumb Industrial Cooperatives appear to want to raise breadcrumb prices.
At a press briefing for industry newspapers on January 14, Chairman Koichi Ozawa, president of Fuji Panko Kogyo, explained that this is because breadcrumb companies’ costs are increasing due to the rise in minimum wages since last October, requests for price increases from logistics companies, and soaring energy costs.
Production for household use also declined from February last year onward. It turned positive in September, but began falling again from October, with December in particular posting an unprecedented drop, he said.
Director Masao Seki, president of FRYSTAR, said the household breadcrumb market is structurally difficult to raise prices in because PB products account for 60% to 70% of the market, but he expressed the view that “from this spring onward, the environment will make price increases for household use unavoidable.”
Regarding appropriate prices that take related companies’ profits into account, Chairman Ozawa said, “For commercial use, four times the wheat procurement price is the standard price for fresh breadcrumbs, and for wholesale and retail use, it is desirable for 10 to 12 times to be the standard,” adding that “the current level has not reached that standard.”
