The price Japanese shoppers pay for rice fell again last week, to an average of 2,788 yen per 5 kilograms at supermarkets in the week of Oct. 19 to 25, according to data released Friday by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. That is 1,420 yen, or 33.7%, below the 4,208 yen recorded in the same week a year earlier.

For companies selling food in Japan, the swing is large. After a shortage that pushed prices sharply higher and led the government to release its reserve stockpiles in 2025, the country now has more rice than it can easily sell. Supermarkets and households are getting relief, and the pressure has moved upstream to farmers, cooperatives and wholesalers holding expensive stock.

Supermarket and Tokyo rice prices keep sliding

The weekly figure, based on point-of-sale data from about 1,000 supermarkets nationwide, fell 33 yen from the previous week, when it stood at 2,821 yen. The average peaked at 4,416 yen per 5 kg in the week ending Jan. 4, the ministry's data show, and dropped below 3,000 yen in the week of Sept. 7 for the first time in about two years, The Nation reported in September, citing ministry data.

Branded rice, which made up 83% of sales in the latest week, fell 61 yen to 2,811 yen and was 37.9% cheaper than a year earlier. Blended rice and private-label bags, the other 17%, rose 69 yen to 2,678 yen, narrowing the gap between premium and budget packs to just over 130 yen.

Shoppers are buying more. Supermarket sales volume in the week to Oct. 25 was 9.1% higher than a year earlier, after gains of 22.8% and 14.9% in the two previous weeks, which the ministry linked to the arrival of the new harvest.

Official price statistics tell the same story. Rice prices in Japan's national consumer price index fell 20.6% in September from a year earlier and 5.5% from August, according to Statistics Bureau figures compiled by the agriculture ministry. In Tokyo's 23 wards, a 5 kg bag of Koshihikari cost 3,698 yen in October, down 31.8% from 5,421 yen a year before. Other single-variety brands averaged 3,562 yen, down 32.1%.

The reversal is steep. The CPI rice index rose 67.5% across 2025 as a whole, the same data show. It has now fallen year over year every month since May.

Inventories pile up as the 2026 crop arrives

The main reason is supply. Private-sector rice inventories reached 2.55 million tons of brown rice at the end of September, the ministry said in a separate release on Oct. 30, up 580,000 tons from a year earlier a level the ministry described as the highest in its data. Almost all of the increase sat at the shipping stage, with farm cooperatives and other collectors, whose stocks rose by 610,000 tons to 2.06 million tons.

Buyers are in no hurry. Collectors had gathered 989,000 tons of the 2026 crop by the end of September, 41,000 tons more than at the same point last year. But the volume already under contract to wholesalers was 669,000 tons, down 573,000 tons, and actual sales were 74,000 tons, down 47,000 tons.

Wholesale prices had already started to give way. Unmilled rice from the 2025 harvest traded at an average of 31,556 yen per 60 kg in August, down 930 yen from July, The Nation reported. Cooperatives also cut what they pay farmers up front: in Miyazaki prefecture, advance payments for early-season Koshihikari were set at 18,000 yen per 60 kg of brown rice, 45% less than the 32,600 yen paid in 2025, Jiji Press reported in July.

Retailers gain, restaurants still pay more

The decline is not reaching every buyer equally. In September, rice dealers' selling prices to retailers were 81.4% of their level a year earlier, according to the ministry's survey of distributors. Prices charged to ready-meal makers and restaurants were 109.5% of last year's level. The ministry did not give a reason; one possibility is that supply contracts agreed at higher prices have yet to expire.

Volumes split the same way. Dealers' sales to retailers rose 4.4% from a year earlier in September, while sales to ready-meal and restaurant customers fell 8.6%, leaving total volume 1.6% lower.

For investors, that gap points to where the benefit lands first. Supermarket chains and food retailers can pass on lower rice costs quickly. Bento makers, convenience-store suppliers and restaurant operators locked into older contracts may wait several months for relief. Rice-growing regions face the opposite problem, as lower advance payments cut into farm incomes.

The contrast with the export market is sharp. While Japanese domestic prices tumble, Vietnamese exporters have been quoting their highest prices in almost two years, as Capital Times has reported.

The agriculture ministry updates its supermarket price series every Friday. The next national consumer price index, covering October, is due later this month, and the ministry's tally of private inventories at the end of October will show whether the 2026 harvest is adding to the surplus.