How Breakfast in the Reiwa Era Reveals Changing Consumer Attitudes toward Food

Food is one of the foundations of our lives. The environment, attitudes, and behaviors around food continue to change. For example, what changes has the Reiwa era (2019 to present day) seen in food culture?

In this article, I would like to consider what is behind these changes and how we are likely to deal with food in the future by examining food trends in the Heisei (1989 to 2019) era’s final four years and the first four years of the Reiwa era using the INTAGE Kitchen Diary, a panel survey that captures the actual conditions at dining tables in households of two or more people.

In the Reiwa Era, Lunches and Dinners at Home Increased while the Frequency of Breakfasts at Home Remained Unchanged

First let’s look at changes in the rates of breakfast, lunch, and dinner being consumed at home in the Heisei and Reiwa eras. Fig.1 shows the percentage of households that ate at home, broken down by meal. Compared with the Heisei era, we can see that the percentage of lunches and dinners eaten at home has increased considerably in the Reiwa era. This is likely due in large part to advisories to stay at home, greater rates of working from home, school closures for children, and curtailment of restaurant operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020.

Fig.1

Although the impacts were not limited to food, the attention the term ie-naka shohi (“consuming at home”) attracted is still fresh in our minds. As you can see in the Rate of Eating at Home tab on the dashboard of this How People Use their Time article, rates of eating lunch and dinner at home are still slightly higher than they were before the pandemic, even now that the pandemic has waned. It appears the trend of eating lunch and dinner at home has taken root to some extent.

Since the pandemic began less than a year after the start of the Reiwa era, we cannot ignore its impact during the first four years of Reiwa. However, in contrast with lunch and dinner, there was no significant change in the rate of eating breakfast at home from the Heisei era to the Reiwa era. The rate remained mysteriously constant.

Of course, part of the reason is that the rate of eating breakfast at home is already high, so there was little room for further increase. However, it is a little surprising that there has been so little movement. One possible reason for skipping breakfast is that people are too busy in the morning to take time for a meal. Does that mean people (households) not in the habit of eating breakfast are not suddenly going to start eating breakfast at home just because they are staying at home more and traveling less due to the pandemic?

In any case, it seems that the content of breakfast has in fact changed from the Heisei era to the Reiwa era. In the next section, we will look at changes in the breakfast menu.

Which Breakfast Items are Losing Popularity in the Reiwa Era?

Fig.2 shows the prevalence of breakfast items (the number of times each item appeared in the course of breakfast at home) in the first four years of the Reiwa era to help us understand changes to the breakfast menu. To compare Reiwa with Heisei, the prevalence of each item during “last four years of Heisei” is shown as 100 in the Comparison with the Heisei Era chart, displayed at right. The items larger than 100 are those that have increased in prevalence compared with the Heisei era.

Fig.2

The first thing one notices is a decrease in the prevalence of rice dishes. The prevalence of rice dishes in general has been declining almost every year, rather than there being a sudden decrease due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I think it would be reasonable say that the overall Japanese move away from rice and rice dishes is also showing up at the breakfast table.

As rice consumption falls, the appearance of menu items strongly correlated with the prevalence of rice also naturally declines. It should be safe to assume that the decrease in “Pickles / Other rice accompaniments” is explained by the overall move away from rice. I believe the decrease in “Main dishes” is actually due to the same cause. About 30% of the “Main dishes” for breakfast are fish dishes such as grilled fish and dried fish, and many of these dishes are considered to be only edible with rice.

In this way, the move away from rice and rice dishes does not simply entail a drop in the consumption of rice. Rice consumption is bound up with consumption of the dishes and ingredients that go well with rice, and I feel there is a large hidden issue in how they are linked.

Japan’s Breakfast Market is Moving away from Rice but Not Necessarily toward Bread

In the first place, why are people eating less rice for breakfast? I don’t think there is a single cause, but a major factor appears to be that consumers feel burdened by the effort and time required to prepare rice-based meals.

Compared to the days when there were few women working outside the home (many were full-time homemakers) and three-generation households were not unusual, it can be inferred that cooking rice in the morning and preparing dishes that go well with rice are rather high hurdles in today’s age, when women are advancing into society, nuclear families are becoming more common, and there are fewer full-time homemakers.

Upon seeing the current situation where people are moving away from rice for breakfast, I think many will imagine that the decline in rice consumption is leading to a corresponding increase in bread consumption. However, it seems the reality is not that simple.

Fig.2 shows that while the number of pastries has certainly increased, the typical breakfast breads, namely sliced bread and toast, have actually remained almost flat. The reason for this difference between pastries and toast is probably the same as that of rice, and I think it is due to the effort required for preparation.

Even though toast “only” needs to be toasted, it still takes some extra effort, and it is often eaten after spreading on butter or jam. Compared to pastries that can be unsealed and eaten as they are, eating toast seems to be relatively bothersome.

As you can see from the trends in rice items and bread items, one of the keys to the Reiwa breakfast is that it is easy to prepare and can be eaten immediately.

Flexible Changes in Consumer Behavior Glimpsed via “Snack Foods in the Morning”

So far, we have focused on the main staple foods, but it is snack foods and desserts that stand out in the supporting role. Since the Heisei era, the prevalence of such items has grown by nearly 30%. What food items in particular boosted the overall category of “Snack foods / Desserts”?

Fig.3 shows the degree of contribution from each sub-category. We found that “Nuts / Dried foods,” “Chocolate,” and “Cookies / Biscuits” were the top three items most responsible for the increase.

Fig.3

What kind of image do you have when you hear “snack foods in the morning”? You might guess that this trend is limited to some subset of the younger generations, but the Kitchen Diary shows that this tendency is in fact more pronounced in households of relatively high age (Fig.4).

Fig.4

And while you might think people are just switching from rice and bread to snack foods to make preparation easier, it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Fig.5 shows the number of food items that appear at breakfast. For example, if a breakfast contains toast, soup, boiled eggs, and coffee, it is counted as “4” because there are four items. Similarly, if a breakfast consisted of only cookies and milk, that would count as “2.”

If consumers were only eating snack foods for breakfast, the total number of breakfast items served in breakfasts featuring snack foods should be below that of the average breakfast, and if they substituted snack foods for other items, the total item count should be close to that of the average breakfast.

However, the actual result was much higher than that of the average breakfast. In other words, the data suggest that the snack foods that appear at breakfast are neither a substitute for other items nor the result of a simple pursuit of convenience, but are in fact being added to the regular breakfast menu.

Fig.5

What kind of reasons or motivations have led consumers to add snack foods to their breakfasts? From here, I can only speculate that the entry point is likely to have been “health needs.”

It has been well recognized in recent years that nuts contain various functional nutrients. In addition, the market for high-cacao chocolates with associated health claims has been expanding recently. I think it means more people are habitually taking nuts and chocolate as a kind of supplement, treated differently from regular dishes.

Dining Table Data Reveal Unexpected Food Consumption Scenes

Amidst the major movement away from rice for breakfast, which I introduced in the previous section of this article, I feel that a new and different trend focusing on health is steadily emerging. In the general conception, nuts and chocolate are considered “snack foods,” and it’s hard to find a connection to breakfast. However, I think it can be said that people in their daily lives are acting outside the boundaries of that conception.

Regardless of what suppliers (manufacturers, retailers, etc.) of such products envisage, it appears that consumers are taking action to “adapt things to the scene” independently.

Through this analysis of breakfast, I realized that the era of people flexibly adapting things to their needs is beginning. This point also seems like it is probably not just about the limited scope of the dining table. In the future, it seems there will be an increasing demand for communication that observes and closely follows the behavior of consumers, instead of messages that are issued from the top down by suppliers. In such a future, we might see opportunities for unexpected things to find roles in unexpected scenes.

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