Mono-Colouring Packaging In Japan

 A few months ago, I came across a news article saying that because of the Iran War, tofu was going to become more expensive.

I was really puzzled by this. Why would tofu, which is made from soya beans grown in Japan, become more expensive? I can understand foods or goods that are imported becoming more expensive, or things that rely on oil or oil products, like plastic goods, becoming expensive. 

Turns out that it's the packaging, especially the dyes that are used in making the colours on the packaging. One executive from a tofu company said that the company was thinking of making the packaging mono-colour to save on one chemical that is needed to make the colours.

A few other companies planned on following suit, changing from bright colours to mono-colours. On different news programmes, the new packages were displayed. 

I thought that this might be a big thing in the bigger cities, where turnover is higher. 

I didn't think that they would end up here!

Until Christopher came home with these yesterday.

The orange is the original package.

Apparently the supermarket he is working at has just recieved there first shipment of the new packages.

I know in the grand scheme of things that this isn't big news. But it triggered memories from the pandemic. The feeling of seeing something on the news but not believing it would come here!

I remember watching when COVID was first discovered in China, the lockdown in the city, news footage showing deserted streets. I thought it would be similar to SARS, not a big deal. But as countries around the world started to show signs that the disease had spread to them, I got a bit worried. 

I'm not sure when or where COVID first appeared in Japan. I remember a cruise ship that had people with COVID on board and how that was mishandled. I guess the first cases were in Tokyo, before the government stopped people from coming into Japan.

This was news; this was happening somewhere else- yes, in Japan, but not in Kyushu. Not in the small city where I live.

Every day the news would report how many were sick in each area; I watched as the numbers near where we lived started to grow. But I still didn't think it would affect me, my family, my friends or students.

I remember the first sign that it was getting closer to home. I stopped into a convenience store to pay a bill. On the counter, there was a plastic partition between the staff and the customers. The same day, I went to a supermarket that had a butcher's counter. If the meat is on sale, I usually get 1kg and ask the staff to separate it into two bags of 500 g each. There was a big sign saying that they would no longer do that, as it takes time and they want the customers to move quickly out of the store.

This made me cry; it made the reality of the pandemic very real. For the first time, I was scared!

I had a similar feeling with the packaging; it was something on the news, nothing to do with me. It wouldn't come here; the war would be over before it got that bad. I know mono-colour packaging isn't bad; I actually like the new packaging, but it's what it represents. The fact that the situation in the Middle East is still fragile, and that we are seeing the results of that war in our supermarkets. I wonder what will be next; already, gas (petrol) has gone up a bit. How much will this war impact Japan and other countries? I read somewhere that fertiliser could become in short supply, leading to crop failures and famine in some of the more vulnerable places. What other things will change in our day-to-day lives before the war ends?

I hope this war ends soon, before things get even crazier! If the worst thing is mono-colouring packaging, then that's good!