I traveled to Japan and was blown away at their food culture.
They have convenience stores and supermarkets that sell full lunches for a few bucks (300-600 yen). The workers have no issues microwaving your food. So getting lunch for under 1000 yen ($7.50) was extremely common, even in big cities like Tokyo.
Their fast food (western like McDonald’s, as well as the gyudon restaurants like yoshinoyas) are also still cheap.
The last thing is just the cultural difference. Customers will outright shame a restaurant if it’s too expensive and it sucks. You see it all the time on Google Reviews. And restaurant owners (of which I spoke to a few) are often too terrified to raise prices because of that shame. One restaurant owner flat out told me that he feels embarrassed to raise prices because he believes his food brings folks happiness and he doesn’t want to hurt the average Japanese.
People own their own businesses in Japan. it’s much more common than in the US. So they get to keep the profits rather than it going to some corporate entity. Much more efficient economically. It helps to have universal health care since it takes that expense out of the equation.
I traveled to Japan and was blown away at their food culture.
They have convenience stores and supermarkets that sell full lunches for a few bucks (300-600 yen). The workers have no issues microwaving your food. So getting lunch for under 1000 yen ($7.50) was extremely common, even in big cities like Tokyo.
Their fast food (western like McDonald’s, as well as the gyudon restaurants like yoshinoyas) are also still cheap.
The last thing is just the cultural difference. Customers will outright shame a restaurant if it’s too expensive and it sucks. You see it all the time on Google Reviews. And restaurant owners (of which I spoke to a few) are often too terrified to raise prices because of that shame. One restaurant owner flat out told me that he feels embarrassed to raise prices because he believes his food brings folks happiness and he doesn’t want to hurt the average Japanese.
How much are government subsides affecting that pricing? Or lack of tax?
People own their own businesses in Japan. it’s much more common than in the US. So they get to keep the profits rather than it going to some corporate entity. Much more efficient economically. It helps to have universal health care since it takes that expense out of the equation.
I don’t know about subsidies. But you do pay a consumption tax of 10%.