Potato chip panic purchases sweep Japan

If you think you’re having a bad week, at least you aren’t paying $12 for your favorite type of potato chip.

Japanese potato chip producers have stopped production and sale on the country’s favorite chips due to a potato shortage. This has resulted in a rash of panic purchases and price gouging, documented accordingly across Twitter. Bloomberg reports bags are going for six times their retail price and one of the discontinued varieties, Pizza Potato, is $12 on Yahoo Japan Corp.’s auction website.

Potato chips are beloved in Japan. Calbee, one of the companies involved, produces the most and second-most popular snacks in the country, according to a TV Asahi poll of 10,000 people and 13 confectionery makers last year. Per Bloomberg, the company was also the subject of a two-hour primetime special.

The crisis is a result of a hurricane that hit the Hokkaido area last August. Hokkaido produces 80 percent of the country’s potatoes and the storm damage devastated the potato crop. Calbee is actively trying to leverage imported potatoes from the U.S. However, regulations limit the amount of imported potatoes they can use and Calbee also told reporters that American potatoes are not adequate quality. Some Japanese potatoes will be harvested in May, but the Hokkaido region won’t be able to contribute a full crop until September.

As such, Calbee will no longer ship 18 varieties and suspend 15 more, including their French salad, pizza and plum flavors as well as their “iconic” Big Bag Lightly Salted. A smaller but no less beloved producer, Koikeya, only uses domestic potatoes and is in a similar bind.

Which leaves many Japanese in clear-the-shelves shopping mode. Japanese newspapers are calling it a “Potato Crisis” and fast-food chains and restaurants will ultimately be affected too.

So the next time you buy a dollar bag of chips, pour out some crumbs for your fellow fans in Japan during this troubling time.