Demand for potato chips has surged in Japan this week, with products on offer for six times their retail price online after Japanese snack company Calbee Inc halted the sale of some of its most popular chip brands.
Calbee’s pizza-flavored chips were yesterday selling for about ¥1,250 (US$12) on Yahoo Japan Corp’s auction Web site. One bag usually sells for less than ¥200.
The crunch came after Calbee on Monday warned that it would temporarily halt the sale of 15 types of potato chips due to a bad crop in Hokkaido, a key potato-producing region. The northern island was hit by a record number of typhoons last year.
Calbee has a 73 percent market share of potato chips in Japan.
‘POTATO CRISIS’
While the focus has been on potato chips following Calbee’s announcement, the shortage might spread to fast-food chains and restaurants that rely on spuds for their dishes, in what appears to be shaping up to be the nation’s “Potato Crisis,” the Nikkei newspaper reported.
“We’re doing everything we can to resume sales again,” Tokyo-based Calbee spokeswoman Rie Makuuchi said.
The company would consider using more imported potatoes from the US and ask potato farmers in the southern island of Kyushu to harvest their crop earlier than scheduled, she said.
She also cited regulatory hurdles, which limit the amount of imported potatoes that can be used in products, as partly responsible for the shortage.
NO END IN SIGHT
Smaller potato chip rival Koike-ya Inc has also halted the sale of nine snack products. The company only uses domestic potatoes and therefore will not rely on imports, company spokesman Kazuya Obata said.
Both Koike-ya and Calbee said they are not sure when sales would resume.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
TikTok abounds with viral videos accusing prestigious brands of secretly manufacturing luxury goods in China so they can be sold at cut prices. However, while these “revelations” are spurious, behind them lurks a well-oiled machine for selling counterfeit goods that is making the most of the confusion surrounding trade tariffs. Chinese content creators who portray themselves as workers or subcontractors in the luxury goods business claim that Beijing has lifted confidentiality clauses on local subcontractors as a way to respond to the huge hike in customs duties imposed on China by US President Donald Trump. They say this Chinese decision, of which Agence