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Last Sunday morning, at a large suburban restaurant, the Slow Food movement exuded languid charm among local breakfast goers. Leisurely table service. Wait 22 minutes for pancakes. When they appeared, a primordial feeling of gratitude welled up.
Fun, but part of the Genoa or Santorini scene. An unexpected turn of events at a bustling McDonald’s on the outskirts of Yokohama.
This delay is unintentional and apologetic, and the problem is a contradiction, not a complaint. The restaurant was realistically busy with customers but the number of staff was unrealistic. Not only was the unfamiliarly long wait under the golden arches, but also from the conspicuous sign by the counter declaring each shift short-staffed and begging future employees to fill the shortfall. You can see how bright it was.
The problem, which Japan has not yet fully acknowledged, is that it probably won’t have the staff it needs, and that an interim solution (a tactic that might best be thought of as “service shrinkflation”) will keep customers out. It means that you can’t cheat forever.
Japan, being both a superpower and a kryptonite, has over the years improved the quality of its services, especially in food and retail. Through the passage of time and the intensity of competition, the standards here have raised customer expectations for cleanliness, punctuality, efficiency, knowledge and attention to detail to some of the highest in the world. However, the lack of these standards is a more conspicuous flaw than elsewhere.
Even global brands like McDonald’s, which seeks to replicate a particular dining experience around the world, recognize that they need to step up their game in Japan, and have historically done so.
The recent fluctuation factor is Japan’s chronic labor shortage. The slow-burning demographic crisis and reluctance to immigrate, which is highlighted almost daily, is affecting the entire economy. A Kyodo News survey of 114 major Japanese companies last week found that 49% said they were understaffed. Meanwhile, Tokyo Shoko Research reported that the number of bankruptcies directly caused by labor shortages in the first half of this year has increased 2.5 times compared to the same period in 2022.
Various versions of the crisis are everywhere, some of which cause anxiety. In a country mostly hills and valleys, members of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers are concerned about a significant national shortage of expertise in bridges and tunnels.
But, at least for now, most of the Japanese consumer stuff is breaking into a complex show that seems to draw inspiration from another company’s gamesmanship. After years of deflation and a loss of pricing power, Japanese food companies have become masters of the dark art of “shrinkflation,” reducing product volume while maintaining familiar package sizes. The practice was not unique to Japan, but the aversion to raising prices made the practice more entrenched than in other countries.
Moody Japanese website Track in detail how, measured and for how long shrinkflation shortened the length of a popular popsicle, the number of processed cheese slices in a pack, or the number of Melty Kiss chocolates in a sachet. Favorite jokes are Fujiya’s popular Country Maam chocolate chip cookies and his prediction that by 2040, under current shrinkflation rates, each cookie will be smaller than his one-yen coin. Focused.
Shrinkflation deception uses the visual consistency of packaging to support expectations while delivering less. We also defer fundamental changes in customer relationships for as long as possible.
Japan’s service sector — amazing 24-hour convenience stores and restaurants, professionally staffed stores, ubiquitous vending machines, insanely regular trains — is like both a shrinkflation game. It looks as if it must play the role of While companies in other countries may shrug their shoulders and offer worse service depending on the situation, Japanese companies are caught in a trap that has historically refused to do so.
As much as possible, the exterior will remain the same, but the experience Japan has long perfected and promised is shortened business hours, longer queues, slower fast food speeds, fewer trains, and more self-service. It will decrease little by little, such as an increase in cash registers. Eventually we reach a point where impersonation becomes impossible.
When the guise of product shrinkflation can no longer be deceiving, food companies push higher prices on their customers. When service shrinkflation stops working in Japan, broader expectations need to be reset in a society that has been undermined by excellence.
leo.lewis@ft.com