Tokyo: Another wave of price hikes will hit Japanese households early next year, with markups of 7,152 food products having already been scheduled for January-April, up some 50 pct from a year earlier, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said in a survey report Wednesday.

Prices for more than 10,000 food items are expected to go up by next month, the private credit research firm also said.

The firm’s latest survey, which covered 105 major food makers’ price increase plans, found the number of scheduled hikes for the first four months of next year grew 2,727 from the previous survey in late November.

Amid higher raw materials prices and rising logistics costs, an increasing number of companies plan to raise prices for products for the second time or carry out so-called stealth price hikes by reducing product sizes while keeping their prices unchanged.

Prices will be raised again for many frozen foods. Those for seasoning products, such as soy sauce, and wine will get higher as well.

Also noticeable are stealth price hike for snacks and bread products.

Next month, Yamazaki Baking Co. <2212> will cut the number of sweet red bean buns per package from five to four, and Kameda Seika Co. will reduce the weight of Happy Turn rice crackers per package from 108 grams to 96 grams.

In March, Nestle Japan Ltd. is set to cut the number of Kit Kat Mini candy bars from 13 to 12 per pack.

“For snack products which have already hit the upper price limit due to past hikes, companies tend to choose stealth hikes,” a Teikoku Databank official said. “It’s important, particularly for snacks, to be in an affordable price range.”

However, if consumers realize that the effective markups after purchasing the products without knowing their sizes were reduced, they could develop negative feelings toward the makers, pundits warned.

Prices have been raised for 20,822 food products so far this year, including stealth hikes, a high for the post-bubble period since the early 1990s, Teikoku Databank said.

JIJI Press