● In recent years, many Japanese restaurants have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, opening up streets, alleys, supermarkets and shopping malls in large, medium and small cities. The decoration styles of these stores are similar, and the promotional slogans are mostly "fresh ingredients" and "high-end raw materials". Corresponding to this is the inexpensive price
● To standardize the operation of Japanese food stores, the operators must first be strengthened. The relevant food regulatory departments should urge relevant catering companies to establish and improve the food safety management system through supervision, random inspection and assessment, and strengthen food safety knowledge training for employees
□ Intern reporter Zhang Shoukun
□ Reporter of this newspaper Zhao Li
Comics/Li Xiaojun
Beijing Haidian resident Zhang Lei is a Japanese food enthusiast. He visits various Japanese food stores every weekend or holiday. In his impression, the Japanese restaurant's decoration style is elegant and steady, the environment is comfortable, and the service is thoughtful, and it "feels very high-end". However, the per capita consumption level of Japanese restaurants at every turn of hundreds or even thousands of yuan made him scream that he couldn't stand it and was a little confused.
There are not many people who are equally confused as Zhang Lei. In recent years, many Japanese restaurants have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and have opened alleys and supermarkets in large, medium and small cities. The decoration styles of these stores are similar: the main color is wood, light brown or black, and the wooden door panels outside the store are hung with Ukiyo-e curtains, wooden bars and tables... The promotional slogans played by these stores are mostly "fresh ingredients" and "high-end ingredients", which corresponds to the inexpensive prices.
However, a reporter from " Law Daily " found that the reputation of Japanese culinary stores has increased as well as their quantity. Some stores cut corners in terms of ingredients and used inferior products as good products, while others have falsely marked the cost of ingredients. Some consumers have a lot of complaints about this and think that the money is not worth it.
The interviewed experts believe that given the factors such as food cost, storage cost, and labor cost, it makes sense that the high Japanese food price is high, but it should be reasonable and legally high, and consumers cannot be deceived or misleading through false or misunderstood price means. Food supervision departments should strengthen supervision, spot checks and assessments of relevant catering enterprises, and urge the establishment and improvement of food safety management systems.
environmental ingredients are quite particular
per capita consumption is as high as 1,000 yuan
00 slices of salmon, Arctic shell , etc., 98 yuan per serving, live eel , baked 198 yuan per serving, and suki pot 228 yuan per serving... The reporter searched on the consumer comment app and found that the most expensive Japanese food restaurant in Beijing was more than 4,500 yuan per person; there are 8 restaurants with per capita consumption of over 1,000 yuan in Chongqing, of which 5 Japanese food restaurants account for; there are 8 restaurants with per capita consumption of over 1,200 yuan per person in Wuhan.
"China Catering Big Data 2021" released by Meituan shows that in 2019 and 2020, the average customer unit price of Japanese food was 101.4 yuan and 100.3 yuan, respectively, ranking among all catering categories.
Dozens of consumers who were randomly interviewed by reporters raised questions: What is the reason behind this simple Japanese food, the consumption is so high?
According to Mr. Cai, the owner of a Japanese culinary store in Quanzhou, Fujian, there are many cold foods in Japanese culinary, and there are also many fresh ingredients involved. The degree of freshness requirements are high, and it is highly dependent on cold chain channels. Some Japanese restaurants directly import ingredients from abroad, such as salmon, wagyu beef, etc. These ingredients are expensive themselves, and coupled with the transportation costs, the final pricing can be imagined.
"And Japanese food is also highly dependent on chef skills. Chefs often need to undergo rigorous training to take up their posts, and the labor cost is higher than that of ordinary categories. In addition, in order to create a better dining atmosphere, Japanese food stores have also spent a lot of effort on marketing packaging." Mr. Cai said.
As Mr. Cai said, the reporter noticed that in the promotional lyrics, many Japanese restaurants claimed that "knives, bowls, chopsticks, chopsticks, chopsticks and other large and small items in the store were personally selected by the boss." "Sweet soy sauce for sushi, sweep the handle and install gold foil, and match it with soft horse hair, which comes from a Japanese craftsman." "The chopping boards are all ginkgo wood from 70 to 100 years old." "Don't underestimate anything in the store. A table at the bar costs hundreds of thousands of yuan"...
In the view of Ren Chao, professor of the School of Economics and Law, the high price of Japanese restaurants is also related to their positioning. Some high-end Japanese restaurants may position consumers in the high-end consumer group, rather than the mass line.
Cut corners and make good use of inferior ingredients
Food cost and moisture
0 Japanese food stores that consume hundreds or even thousands of yuan per person can really ensure that the quality of ingredients is as advertised?
Tianjin resident Ms. Li gave a negative answer based on her dining experience at a Japanese restaurant: " tempura " is slim and has no crispiness; the bluefin tuna sashimi is black in color and the taste is not right, it is obviously deteriorating after being left for a long time; the green-border abalone is paired with ginseng, abalone is an ordinary small abalone that costs 10 yuan per piece, and ginseng is also invisible.
"Two people spent more than 1,000 yuan and felt like they were cheated." Ms. Li complained.
has also frequently exposed incidents of Japanese food stores using inferior ingredients as good ones and cutting corners. For example, "He Lu" closed down due to problems such as fried rice with rotten rice and dyed crabs; "Aisan Ramen" was accused of blending noodle soup with concentrated liquid, which is completely inconsistent with its promotional noodle soup made of pure pork bones; "Qi Benwei Japanese Food" was exposed that its boss was wearing a watch and holding a roll, meinazepam was squeezed on sushi, cucumbers were placed on sashimi , mustard used mustard paste, etc.
Mr. Zhao, a resident of Hexi District, Tianjin, has been engaged in seafood wholesale for many years, and he noticed that there are many chaos in the ingredients of Japanese food stores. "Take salmon as an example. Salmon is very expensive. The unit price of salmon imported from Norwegian is 80 yuan to 100 yuan, while domestic rainbow trout is cheaper than 4 jin. Some bad merchants will use rainbow trout to pretend to be salmon. However, salmon sashimi has been treated with low temperature and rapid freezing, and there is basically no parasite problem, but rainbow trout is farmed in freshwater, and it is easy to retain parasites after eating raw."
"How many A is Wagyu? Which honeydew melon is from? Which is the Dufu Daoxian ? What is the difference between sake and 2-3-3-9-point minus? It is difficult for ordinary people to taste the difference." Mr. Zhao said that some Japanese restaurants claim that "eat super high-end Japanese food per person about 100 yuan per person" "Salmon sashimi, foie gras sushi, sea urchin steamed eggs and other unlimited foods". If it is real, the cost of these stores is much higher than the price. How is it possible?
In addition, the cost of some Japanese ingredients is not as high as people think.
Mr. He from Guangxi once worked in a local Japanese restaurant with an average of 100 yuan per person. He found that the most time-consuming job was to make sushi. Most of the other dishes were wholesale semi-finished or finished food, and just processed and placed on a plate.
"The common side dishes in Japanese cuisine shops, mustard octopus , spicy fresh clams, sweet and spicy snail slices, etc. are all fast food products purchased online. You can buy a large box for 30 or 40 yuan. Ramen is wholesale, and the soup is blended with concentrated ramen juice. The char siu on it is also quick-frozen pre-made char siu pork . The wholesale price of a slice of char siu is about 1 yuan. Tempura, octopus marmotto , etc. are also semi-finished products, just take it out and fry it." Mr. He introduced that some stores promote themselves as "handmade Japanese ingredients", but in fact they also use semi-finished products.
Mr. He told reporters that taking Sashimi as an example, high-end Japanese cuisine shops that use fine ingredients will choose chilled fish ingredients. Fresh means slaughtering freshly caught seafood on the spot, removing the internal organs, adding ice cubes to lock in the umami flavor, and then airlifting to Japanese restaurants in various places for sale. The meat of the chilled fish is generally bright, soft and elastic, but the logistics cost will be higher. In order to save costs, many Japanese restaurants in China choose frozen ingredients.
sweet shrimp is commonly found in sashimi. A portion of sweet shrimp sashimi often costs fifty or sixty yuan, and the quantity is only about five or six. However, on the procurement and wholesale platform, the net weight of 4 kilograms of seed-carrying sweet shrimps can only be 108 yuan, and 50 can be bought with head, shelling and thawing ready-to-eat sweet shrimps for 35 yuan. The purchase cost of a sweet shrimp is about 1 yuan.
The Arctic Celery, which looks bright in color, is generally quoted from 205 yuan to 265 yuan due to different sizes. The commonly used Arctic shells in Japanese restaurants can buy 50 to 60 capsules for 245 yuan, and the cost price of one capsule is around 5 yuan.
Salmon sashimi, the mid-stage domestic salmon that can be served directly is priced at about 50 yuan per catty, and the imported price is above 60 yuan. In terms of conversion, the cost of a piece of salmon sashimi is about 3 yuan.
"In this way, a sashimi platter priced at a Japanese restaurant priced at hundreds of yuan may be the actual cost of only 20 to 30 yuan." Mr. He said, but consumers do not know the information and think it is all high-end ingredients when they see the promotion.
Finish the responsibility of the restaurant owner
Strengthen daily supervision and inspection
"Some Japanese food stores have long-term problems such as inferior ingredients as good ones and stealing beams to replace pillars, which may constitute fraud against consumers." Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association of the Chinese Law Society, said that high-end Japanese food raw materials, storage and processing require high-end Japanese food, but if merchants reduce the quality of Japanese food through the above forms, they can save a lot of economic costs, and many merchants take risks in the face of interests.
Chen Yinjiang analyzed that because Japanese food is special, food problems are not easy to be discovered. It is difficult for ordinary consumers to identify the true quality of Japanese food products. Even if they find that the ingredients are not right, it is difficult to provide evidence to protect their rights. At most, they are asked to change one. The low-cost violation objectively condones the store's behavior of using inferior products as good ones and replacing pillars.
In Ren Chao's view, according to the relevant provisions of the Consumer Rights Protection Law, the relevant administrative departments shall conduct random inspections and inspections of the goods and services provided by the operators regularly or irregularly within their respective responsibilities, and promptly announce the random inspection results to the public. Therefore, the market supervision and management department can further protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers within its responsibilities, conduct random inspections and inspections of the raw materials of Japanese culinary stores, especially high-priced Japanese culinary materials, and promptly announce the results to the public.
Chen Yinjiang said that if you want to standardize the operation of Japanese food stores, you must first strengthen the responsibilities of the operators. The relevant food supervision departments should urge relevant catering companies to establish and improve food safety management systems through supervision, random inspections and assessments, and strengthen food safety knowledge training for employees. The main person in charge should take the lead in implementing the enterprise's food safety management system and be fully responsible for the food safety work of the enterprise.
He added that in addition, daily supervision and inspection should be strengthened, and a comprehensive inspection should be conducted on the source of raw materials, storage environment, processing technology, and the implementation of relevant food safety systems should be carried out. Once any violation of food safety regulations or other acts that harm consumers' rights and interests should be investigated and dealt with in accordance with the law and exposed to the public. When consumers encounter food safety or other infringement issues during meals, they should collect evidence in a timely manner to protect their rights in accordance with the law and report it to the food safety regulatory department.
"The catering industry is a fully competitive industry and can price independently based on factors such as supply and demand and cost. However, it is necessary to clearly mark prices and cannot deceive or mislead consumers through false or misunderstood price means." Chen Yinjiang said.
Source: Rule of Law Daily-Rule of Law Network
