McDonald’s, 7-Eleven and mayonnaise maker Kewpie are just some of the firms in Japan contending with the worst-ever global outbreak of bird flu.
Of 100 listed restaurant companies in Japan, 18 had suspended egg-related items as of Sunday, according to Teikoku Databank.
Fewer hens led to a near doubling in the wholesale price of the farm staple last month to ¥327 (US$2.38) from a year earlier, the research firm said on Tuesday.
Photo: Bloomberg
That means McDonald’s Holdings Co Japan Ltd’s Teritama Muffin is off the menu.
The breakfast sandwich, which combines egg, sausage and teriyaki sauce, is typically offered in spring each year.
The fast-food giant has also warned it could temporarily halt sales of hamburgers that contain eggs if supply disruptions persist.
OUTBREAKS
Japan is just one of many countries wrestling with an outbreak that has sent egg prices skyrocketing in the US and caused a shortage of baby chicks in China.
At a time of heightened inflation fears around the globe, the unprecedented spread of the disease is yet another reminder of the grim impact of pandemics on markets for food.
Japan confirmed its first case in October last year, beginning the earliest bird flu season the country has seen, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said.
The disease has spread to more than half of the nation’s prefectures, forcing the cull of about 15 million birds, the ministry said.
7-Eleven, owned by Seven & i Holdings Co and one of the many convenience stores ubiquitous across Japan, suspended the sale of some egg products in January.
VEGGIE SWAP
Other measures have included swapping in vegetables for eggs in its tuna sandwiches, as well as increasing the portion of meat in its ham and egg offering.
Condiment-makers Kewpie Corp and Ajinomoto Co have said they would raise prices from next month for products like mayo and tartar sauce amid the surge in costs of one of their key ingredients.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day