By: Krithi Kankanala; Edited by: Shagun Khetan
In 2022, the ultraconservative Japanese government rolled out its ‘Viva Sake’ competition in a bid to garner ideas from the public about increasing the consumption of sake and other Japanese alcohol among the youth. While the campaign received mixed reactions across the world, it was also the first time that the world witnessed a country encouraging its people to take up alcohol, a product that isn’t advertised often due to its addictive and harmful nature. This article focuses on exploring the national importance of sake, and its unwavering influence on the Japanese economy, culture, and government policies in light of the ‘Viva Sake’ campaign introduced in 2022.
The great irony of sake consumption:
Despite its longstanding importance in Japanese culture, brewing companies have noticed a steep decline in the local demand for sake. This decline, however, isn’t a recent phenomenon. It was noticed in 1978 when the Washington Post published an article about the same. According to news reports, production of sake for the Japanese market has dropped by an estimated 75% since the early 1970s, with a 30% decline in domestic demand during the last decade alone. In February this year, a survey concerning the frequency of sake consumption revealed that more than 56% of the population stated that they don’t drink sake or alcohol.
While such a figure may seem worrying, it represents only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin involves the rapid growth of sake exports. In 2020, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association reported a 57% uptick in sake exports over the previous 10 years, with the bulk of the sake making its way to Hong Kong, China, the U.S., Taiwan, and Korea. The government, noticing such a trend, has encouraged the preparation of sake that’s specifically meant for export and suits foreign taste buds. In fact, the government has endorsed a sake brewing company situated all the way in Paris.
But what exactly has caused the formation of such opposing trends across the border?
The cultural phenomenon called sake:
Sake has called Japan home ever since rice and its brewing techniques were brought from China in 2 BC. Over 2026 years, Sake has found itself deeply embedded in Japanese culture as part of marriage rituals, an offering to God or an ancestor, a sign of good luck to usher in a new year, and more. However, despite its cultural significance, there has been a decline in domestic consumption of sake due to multiple reasons, the first and most important one being globalization, or more specifically, westernization.
The “Westernization” trend can be seen in the rising popularity of beer, whiskey, and liqueur combined with the fall of sake as a preferred choice of alcohol among the Japanese population. However, this isn’t simply a trend, it’s the truth of a society grappling with an inferiority complex in a growingly westernized world, a sentiment clearly reflected by Tsunesuke Yoshimura, former president of the Japanese Sake Association when he said, "We Japanese admire anything that belongs to foreign countries. It is not fashionable to like Japanese products."
Alongside globalization, Japan’s rapid increase in the aging population means that every year a large segment of old people chooses to stay away from “strong” alcohol like sake which contains 18-20% alcohol content in favour of its contemporaries like beer which contain a mere 5-7%, due to health concerns. This decline is particularly concerning since the majority of sake enthusiasts belong to this aged segment of the population.
Another reason that the younger population doesn’t really take to sake is the hefty price tag it carries. The production of sake involves procuring a special kind of rice which makes it expensive. It also involves a labour-intensive process for brewing which increases the production costs and overall price as compared to other alcohol in the Japanese market.
As sake has become increasingly popular, the rise in exports of sake can mainly be attributed to the growing world's affinity towards Japanese culture and cuisine. This can be seen in the rapid increase of Japanese restaurants globally from 55,000 to 110,000 from 2013-2018. This rising popularity of Japanese culture began in the early 70’s and was the subject of a NY Times article that described growing Japanese influence over American architecture, fashion, and food.
Another reason for sake’s rising exports is its extremely high ratings (>90) on the 100-point Robert Parker wine rating scale. Such a rating allows them to appear relatively cheaper when compared to exorbitantly priced high-class Bordeaux wines, which have similar ratings.
Want to save the economy? Time to drink more:
What did this decline in the consumption of sake mean for the government? The National Tax Agency (NTA) has been collecting lesser and lesser tax income from alcohol sales. It shrank from 5% of total tax income in 1980 to just 1.7% in 2020, which meant that the government only earned Y1.1 trillion (US$8.14 billion) in 2020, down by Y110 billion (US$814.21 million). Alongside the loss in tax revenue, another emerging trend worrying alcohol producers and the government alike is the shrinking alcohol market in Japan. Such a trend is the result of the Japanese population simply drinking less alcohol, with the average citizen in 2020 drinking 75 litres of alcohol a year as compared to 100 litres in 1995.
While the NTA created the ‘Viva Sake’ campaign to improve their financial performance, they received a lot of backlash, and rightfully so. Why, one might wonder. The simple answer lies in a blog writer’s description of Japan as a “booze lover’s paradise”. Akin to such a nickname, 73% of young men in Japan drink harmful amounts of alcohol as compared to their global counterparts who stand at 39%. In an effort to ease the backlash they’re facing, the Japanese health ministry distanced itself from the campaign and along with the NTA sought to clarify that the campaign was meant to encourage people to drink “appropriate amounts” and not excessively.
Encouraging consumption of alcohol among a rising population that’s already suffering from toxic workplace culture, declining marriage and birth rates, increasing cost of living and a loneliness epidemic, seems to be a slow poison that the country isn’t built to handle.
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