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High-End Produce A single perfect cantaloupe, circled with a ribbon and nested in its own wicker gift basket, retails for $100 to $250 in Japan. That same melon – even as a gift – would cost less than $10 in the United States, depending on its weight. Both countries value high quality produce as gifts, but in Japan, something more is at stake. Perfect fruit is part of an elaborate, formal tradition of gift-giving among the Japanese.
Japan currently imports more fresh fruit from the United States than from any other country, although competition from other world markets has increased in the last few years. Imported U.S. fruit includes tangerines, bananas, grapes, melons, apples, grapefruit and watermelon, among others, and canned fruits. The two College of Agriculture researchers, who work in the Division of Retailing and Consumer Studies, visited Tokyo in December 1995 to begin their study of market niche opportunities for U.S. fruit exports to Japan. Their timing enabled them to observe one of the country's major gift-giving seasons, "oseibo," in full swing. "We found that the Japanese gift market is the largest in the whole world," Shim says. "It's in daily life. The Japanese gift calendar is very extensive." It includes two main gift-giving seasons: "oseibo" in the winter and "ochugan" in the summer. Both seasons last about six weeks and involve formal gift-giving. "Formal means everything has to be in a package," Shim explains. "Fruit plays a big role during these two seasons." Numerous other occasions scattered throughout the year call for gifts as well. Centuries-old standards of quality for all gifts, including fruit, emphasize appearance and packaging as much as substance. High quality gifts symbolize gratitude, honor and hospitality when exchanged between families, business contacts, and community members. As a snack, fruit also plays a different role in Japan than in the United States. The Japanese typically consume fruit in the evening, always peeled and cut up, and not as part of a meal. Gehrt and Shim found the nature of snack products is much healthier in Japan than in the United States. Chips, dips and other high fat foods are not common, although they are catching on. Still, tossing an apple into a lunch sack to eat out of hand is foreign to the Japanese, who treat fruit less casually than Americans do. To find out more about produce handling in Japan, Gehrt and Shim visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market and other produce markets, both wholesale and retail. "We felt it was essential for us to have first-hand experience to learn how these fruits are distributed in Japan," Gehrt says. "We needed to understand their retail structure as well." While on the tour, they noticed that even at the wholesale level, the produce is meticulously handled. "There's a saying in Japan, that the Japanese eat with their eyes," Gehrt notes, "and from the appearance of the fruit, we found that was true." "The fruit is beautiful, blemish-free and uniformly sized," Shim adds. "It's packed well, usually individually wrapped, and produce prices are high. Expensive fruit is all over the place, and right nearby." High quality produce is sold at corner markets, mom-and-pop type stores, and even special upscale fruit markets called fruit parlors. Shoppers can buy small bags of tangerines and apples for around $20 or individually wrapped finer specimens for $7 each and up. Honeydews and cantaloupe command the highest prices, and they are readily available. "There is a $100 cantaloupe within walking distance for just about anybody in Japan," Shim says. For either purpose – gift-giving or snacking – Shim and Gehrt learned that the Japanese consumer looks for fruit with no pesticide residues (preferably no pesticides used at all), and no wax. "The Japanese are very concerned about pesticide residue and wax on U.S. produce," Shim remarks. "Organic fruit is becoming more popular." "First, we wanted to generate a list of products the Japanese would consume as a snack and give as gifts," Gehrt says. "Then we used that wide variety of products to ask for the situations that would cause people to choose one item over another." With the information gathered from the focus groups, and the help of translators, the researchers drafted two questionnaires before they left Japan, one on snacking and the other on gift-giving. The surveys were sent to two sets of 1,500 housewives in major Japanese cities in May 1996. "This study will provide an intimate portrait of the Japanese as fruit consumers," Gehrt and Shim say. "It will give us an idea of how to position American fruit for the Japanese consumer. We will learn which products we are competing against in the Japanese market." Survey Results: The Japanese gift-giving survey was conducted among 388 Japanese housewives in 11 metropolitan cities. Japanese consumers rated the appropriateness of 18 gift alternatives (including 6 fruits) in 8 scenarios. The scenarios consisted of combinations of the following situational factors:
On the basis of this data, gift items were situationally characterized in terms of the three factors above and then clustered based on the similarity of their situational characterizations. The findings showed that fruits did not necessarily compete with each other. One cluster of competitive gift products did consist primarily of fruits as well as fruit juice. This cluster of products was appropriate for occasions in which the recipient was younger than the giver, and a person with whom the gift-giver had an informal relationship. Grapes fell into a cluster that included non-fruit items, such as western style sweets, rice cakes and flowers. Situationally, the cluster was particularly appropriate for occasions involving home visits. Cantaloupes landed in a cluster labeled high luxury. It included one other item – high-end Japanese sweets. The cluster was appropriate for occasions in which the recipient was older than the giver and a person with whom the gift-giver had a formal relationship. This segmentation scheme which is situationally-oriented (in contrast to conventional product-oriented or consumer demographic-oriented schemes) sheds new light on how to position products in the Japanese market. Article Written by Susan McGinley, ECAT, College
of Agriculture Researcher:
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Ken
Gehrt, and Soyeon Shim, both faculty members in the School of Family
and Consumer Resources at The University of Arizona, are examining
the ways the Japanese select and enjoy fruit. They say the results
of their USDA-funded study will provide a window for U.S. fruit growers,
exporters and distributors to view and assess their strategies regarding
the Japanese snack and gift markets. Ultimately, they want to determine
the attributes of fruits that make them desirable in the Japanese
market. 
During
their stay, Gehrt and Shim conducted focus groups with the help of
Japanese facilitators – marketing personnel from one of the largest
Japanese marketing firms in Tokyo – to determine which fruits
were most popular. They wanted to define the criteria the Japanese
use in selecting fruit for different occasions. The researchers asked
two groups of housewives from the Tokyo area about Japanese snacking
and giftgiving habits. (Women normally do the food and gift buying
in Japan.)