Exploring agencies behind the food trend onigiri in Germany
*disclaimer* This article is based on research I conducted from January 2023 to March 2023. The original article conducted interviews with a few local business owners based in Germany. In this article, the brands are anonymized to protect their business and private information.
When you think about restaurants that serve international cuisine in your neighbourhood, how many and what kinds of dishes are on the menu? Today, you can try cuisine from various parts of the world by visiting restaurants around the corner of your town. Although globalization is often considered as a cause for homogenization of cultures, it does not mean, for instance, Japanese food served in Germany is identical to the one in Japan, neither in terms of ingredients nor in its meanings/connotations. The perspective of framing extended accessibility, proliferation, and variety of food trends as just “cultural appropriation” can obscure the cultural contacts behind the trend, and also who is involved in the process of making the trend. The term cultural appropriation and other metaphors generate a deficiency that captures the culture as one’s commodification: criticism against Japanese restaurants abroad, whose chef is not Japanese is a good example. A transcultural perspective challenges such notions of an apparent “purity”. There is no such food that has not been subject to outside influences, and thus, factually, there is no “pure” Japanese food. In the interactions with other food cultures, it continuously transforms.
Here, I will take one of the newly appeared food trends in Germany, Japanese Onigiri (rice ball) to explore how the food culture transforms through the process of marketing in Germany, and challenge the notion that culture is subject to commodification by one nation. A transcultural lens is deployed to investigate the making of the trend, which enables us to see it from the perspective of not only the frame of nations but also smaller-scale perspectives like that of individual contributors, and how the culture traveled between places and transformed. It makes an intriguing case, highlighting the role of local retailers of Onigiri in Germany who “translated” food culture into the food trend in Germany utilizing their own interactions with Japanese culture. Since it is a translation, there are aspects that are not translated or nuances of difference that should not automatically be defined as mistranslations as there is no pure original Japanese food which is always the same and can be compared to translated food.
The onigiri trend has been observed since around the early 2010s in Germany, and it is unique in German-speaking areas according to the number of suppliers reported by Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), a Japanese government-related organization in Germany. From its appearence, Onigiri here seems to be the same as the one in Japan - it is wrapped within a plastic package and marketed for its conveninence. It is easily accessible in places like chained supermarkets, similar to its distribution at convenience stores in Japan that sell Onigiri anytime and anywhere. Nevertheless, it has distinctive differences in Germany. It is provided with several flavors, reflecting a preference towards a plant-based diet that is practiced by German consumers, and sold at local German supermarkets or small retail shops, and Japanese grocers. Some supermarkets have their own brand for the Onigiri product line, but mostly it is bought from local retailers. In the case of these local businesses, they are often the manufacturer, retailer, and supplier; the majority are from Germany. They manufacture Onigiri every morning and retail it at their own shops, while products are also delivered to shops owned by the other local retailers. Whereas in Japan the flavors are more variant depending on the brands usually run by parent companies of convenience stores, and there is no consideration of veganism or vegetarianism.
So the question is: how did the business owners in Germany translate this specific food product into the German market? When you look at the retailers’ websites, the emphasized messages about onigiri can be grouped into four categories: 1) healthiness and freshness 2) using Bio (organic) ingredients, 3) gluten-free, and 4) Japaneseness/ authenticity.
The first three categories link to the shifts in eating habits in Germany and how healthiness gains attention among consumers, which can be observed from a variety of vegan, vegetarian, and bio labels available in a German supermarket. The association of labels with healthiness and freshness was initiated during the civil food movement in the late 20th century, caused by social changes in class structure, people's values, and the popularization of higher education. One of the initiatives was the Green Movement, led by the Green Party in West Germany, founded in 1980. The movement was expanded and later joined by groups claiming new energy, food, and health forms, which fueled consumers’ demands for healthier, cleaner, and safer food. Around the same time, the Bio (organic food) label started to gain more attention from the consumers. The reason for consuming organic food was not only for the environment, animal protection, or because of the German government’s encouragement. Rather, it was for their own health. These eating habits have been practiced until today in tandem with newer eating habits that emerged in the 2010s: gluten-free, lactose-free, and veganism.
In Germany, Onigiri is marketed as a healthy product by producers. The majority of consumers here tend to be young women who consider their health on a daily basis, despite the carbohydrates and calories it has. However, it is not marketed in Japan as a healthy food. Why did this shift happen?
The foregoing image associated with Japanese food in Germany is related to that approach. Sushi was brought to Germany via German exchange students and business travelers who tasted sushi for the first time in the U.S. Therefore, sushi consumed in Germany is affected by American-style sushi. It was marketed heavily by sushi restaurants in Germany as healthy food, reflecting the built image of sushi in the U.S. It was in the 1980s that its popularity heightened to the extent of the so-called sushi boom. In this way, onigiri, or Japanese food in general, is linked to a healthy image. In terms of freshness of onigiri in Germany, which seems to go against convenience food with extended expiration days, owners invest in developing a logistics system to import fresh ingredients from neighboring areas and immediately deliver them to retail shops. Yet, the logistics and delivery depends on the size of business and how many products they have to manufacture, which leads to distinctive definitions of freshness upon each retailer: between a local small retailer who sells it mainly at their own ship and a retailer who sells Onigiri to chain supermarkets.
The fourth point, “authenticity” and “Japaneseness” played a significant role in their translations. On the brands’ websites, one of the popular motivations for establishing the business is to introduce “authentic” Japanese culture to German consumers. Although “authenticity” here means how similar and accurate to the “original” Japanese Onigiri, as it is stated before, their products are not identical to those Japan, or should not be captured that way. What is, then, Japaneseness to them? How is it reflected in their products?
One of the similarities among these business owners is that they interacted with Japanese culture before launching their business. Some were exchange students studying and living in Japan, some others were playing Judo, and some liked Japanese culture and often traveled to Japan. Yet, the owners’ source of translation is not monopolized by Japanese culture. Some brands are referring to the origin of the idea as already established Onigiri shops in Britain or France whose business structure and products are also not identical to those in Germany.
Based on their experiences in Japanese culture in different forms, they developed their own “Japaneseness,” which made Japanese culture Japanese and then implicated it in their products. In other words, their translations are highly inspired by their own interpretation of Japaneseness in terms of food culture. For instance, some see the Japaneseness in using Japanese ingredients, recipes, or employing native staff, while others see it in freshness, convenience, or manual manufacturing process. They are quite particular about the origins of ingredients, especially rice, and seaweed that they consider as core ingredients of onigiri. Where the ingredients are coming from is what tells its “authenticity” to consumers. Some of them use round-shaped rice produced in Italy using Japanese know-how, which makes its quality similar to Japanese rice. In terms of import, social and political factors play a decisive role. For instance, there was a strict import limitation of Japanese products by the German government due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which limited one brand from importing ingredients from Japan. Another point is that owners are using plastic packages to separate seaweed and rice in order to keep seaweed as fresh as Japanese onigiri, although customers, who are conscious of the environment, are complaining about its packaging method. This is also observed in their efforts to express Japaneseness to German consumers.
Exploring the making of the new food trend in Germany revealed local business owners’ agency in translation of their own Onigiri and how they developed the way of translation through their own experience with Japanese culture, interactions with similar businesses run outside of Germany, and consumers’ preferences. It is of course important to pay attention to the top-down power of governmental restrictions on import, or in even bigger scale, international relations with the country where products are imported from. Still, reintroduction of the specific Japanese food based on owners plays a vital role in making Onigiri a trendy food in Germany. This article explains just one part of the Japanese food trend abroad by focusing on the individual agency, and thus there is more space to explore. Since this is still a new trend, it will be interesting to see how onigiri in Germany will be positioned in the future, or how this trend will affect upcoming new Japanese food that will be introduced to Germany.
Resources:
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"JETRO - Norinsuisanbutsu-Shokuhin Kunibetsu Marketing KisoJoho“ (Agricultural, Forestry, Fishery and Food Products Basic Marketing Information by Country), JETRO, accessed 20th June 2023, https://www.jetro.go.jp/ext_library/1/_Marketing/2022/marketing_basicinfo_Germany_2208_r.pdf.
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