BUSINESS｜CULTURE

Why Japanese People Splurge on Cold Meals During New Year’s Holidays

Osechiーthe delicious way to bring good fortune

If you have ever stayed in Japan over the New Year’s holiday, you might have been surprised by people’s craze for the traditional meal that time of year—osechi ryōri (おせち料理). No matter how westernized Japanese people’s lifestyles have become, we don’t skip this variety of small dishes that wish for a year of prosperity.

Despite the expense, crowds, and cold weather, Japanese consumers hunt for osechi everywhere from Ameyoko in Tokyo or Nishiki Market in Kyoto, to neighborhood grocery stores. Osechi is such an interesting topic that unveils Japanese consumer behaviors. So let me explain why chilled osechi sells like hotcakes and how it represents Japan’s society.

Meals to Eat with the Gods

The origin of osechi dates back more than a millennium. To welcome local toshigami-sama (年神様), the gods of the year and a bountiful harvest, people used to keep their homes quiet from January 1 to January 3. Today, homeowners and retail stores still clean up and decorate their houses with kagami-mochi, shime-kazari, and kadomatsu. Then they prepare food that can be stored for a couple of days at the end of the year to peacefully celebrate the New Year with the gods.

This explains why Japanese people buy expensive—often more than 50,000 yen ($370)—yet cold, ready-to-eat meals. The answer is: Osechi is engimono (縁起物).

The term engimono is critical to know if you want to market a business in Japan. Engi (縁起) means a sign of luck, which originates from Buddism. It’s a religious way to link cause and effect.

For instance, if you dream of Mount Fuji on the night of the new year, it implies you’ll have a wonderful year because Mt. Fuji is also engimono, a lucky sign. If you tell your friends about the dream, they’ll reply:

縁起がいいね！(Engi ga ii ne! ) That’s a good omen!

Lucky signs mean a lot in Japan. You’ll stumble upon lucky charms wherever you go. Shrines, seasonal festivals, and important ceremonies like weddings are filled with things that remind Japanese people of auspicious signs.

Good Luck Needs to Be Expensive

If you look up ‘why osechi is expensive’ in Japanese, you’ll find enigmatic answers such as “it has to be expensive.” The most solid argument for the high cost is the amount of time and effort osechi requires to prepare. But the more persuasive premise is:

Engimono need to be expensive because high cost is the point. Cheap products can hardly be expected to bring good luck.

It’s like paying extra to buy a lucky charm and writing a wish on a wooden plaque ema (絵馬) at a shrine to wish for the passing of a college entrance exam. Another popular practice is purchasing fuku-bukuro (福袋) lucky bags, which contain a variety of unspecified items. Fuku is a synonym for engi, meaning good fortune, and Japanese retail stores sell lucky bags during the New Year season. Customers usually don’t complain even if the lucky bag isn’t a great deal, because the point is to receive blessings by buying it.

In fact, the ingredients in osechi are all considered auspicious symbols; not only specialties such as Japanese spiny lobsters and herring roe, but beans and lotus roots are the symbols of longevity and a successful future.

Osechi Is a Reflection of Evolving Japanese Society

The numbers and trends of osechi give a sense of the direction Japan is heading. Here are some noteworthy key indicators that osechi has revealed in the past few years.

The market size has doubled in the past two decades

The total sales of osechi across the country were approximately ¥30 billion ($221 million) in 2000, and they doubled to over ¥60 billion yen ($444 million) in 2020[1]. Experts credit this to fewer people cooking themselves due to a spike in the number of busy double-income households.

One-tier osechi is booming

Osechi is traditionally served in a multi-layered lacquer box called jūbako (重箱) or ojū (お重). However, one-tier osechi for one person has recently become mainstream for two reasons: The growing number of single households and the effects of COVID—separate boxes for each family member to avoid sharing, and because fewer people are returning to their hometown for family gatherings during the holiday season.

Demand for osechi outstrips supply at retail chains

More and more people are buying this traditional food with a few clicks online, but osechi requires time-sensitive manufacturing and delivery, which creates a bottleneck to meeting growing demand.

Osechi has to be cooked at the end of December and delivered by December 31. Due to constraints on the supply chain capacity, many stores have to restrict the number of orders they can fulfill.

Retail chain Itō Yōkadō sells more than 50% of their osechi online, and online sales marked an increase of over 10% from 2019 to 2020[1]. The entire osechi market has been expanding at a steady rate of 5% every year, and retail chains have been trying to corner all the potential customers for jūbako.

Final Thoughts

Japanese people not only enjoy lucky charms and eating osechi, but checking their luck too. They buy omikuji fortune slips and takara-kuji lotteries, particularly during the holiday season. That’s partly because they regularly eat food that is thought to be lucky and keep things tidy to welcome good fortune. Some follow the custom of Chinese feng shui (風水) to boost their luck even higher.

Every family has their favorite osechi meal depending on where they live, and that’s the taste of family tradition and blessings people pass down through the generations. Some say buying osechi allows caregivers to take a break from the kitchen, but that doesn’t necessarily explain the reasons people choose fancy prepared meals.

Even for those who don’t take lucky charms seriously, osechi is something special. I still remember my grandmother’s osechi and all the feasts I had during my childhood in snowy Niigata. Osechi certainly shapes people’s most important memories of their family, and Japanese consumers keep buying expensive osechi after they grow up in the hope of their loved one’s health and happiness.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season, and may the osechi be with you.

Sources: [1] ｢高額おせち｣がコロナ禍で売れまくった事情 Toyo Keizai

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