Retort Curry Industry] Too Easy, Too Delicious! The “400-yen barrier” has been broken down, and the hot battle for authentic taste is on!
House Foods, the "industry leader," Otsuka Foods, the oldest "Bon Curry," S.B., a "famous restaurant collaboration," 36 Chambers of Spice, a brave newcomer in the high price range, MUJI, which does not put its products in boxes, etc.
Cheap and tasteless” – this is the image consumers have of retort-packed curry, which is now collapsing.
The image consumers have of retort-pouch curry is now collapsing.
Last summer, Shogi prodigy Sota Fujii, 21, received a 5,000 yen (including tax) retort curry containing a large portion of Sendai beef steak as a birthday present from Toshiyuki Moriuchi, 53, 9-dan.
Retort curry, which used to be sold as a cheap and convenient product that could be obtained at a 100-yen store, is now undergoing a major transformation. Takehisa Inoue, president of the Curry Research Institute, explains.
The original retort curry was Otsuka Foods’ Bon Curry, which went on sale in 1968. After that, products in the 200-yen tax-included price range were released one after another, such as Meiji’s Ginza Curry. Later, products under 200 yen, such as House Foods’ “咖喱屋カレー” (139 yen), began to appear on store shelves, and the public began to gravitate toward cheaper products.
The tide began to turn in the 2000s. It was in the 2000s when Shinjuku Nakamuraya began selling high-end curry priced in the 300-400 yen range. Until then, there was an unwritten rule in the industry that “products over 400 yen cannot be sold,” but Nakamuraya has broken down this barrier. Retort curry is sterilized under high pressure to withstand storage at room temperature, so the aroma of the spices is lost and the curry does not have an authentic taste, which was a weakness. ……
In fact, at the time, Nakamuraya was making retort curry for commercial use for a certain family restaurant. Through repeated trial and error, we succeeded in raising the quality to a level where it could be served in restaurants. However, that family restaurant started to serve its own manufactured curry, and the contract expired, so we started to sell the product ourselves, taking advantage of our accumulated know-how. Since it was originally a product for restaurants, the price range was also raised. Nevertheless, the authentic taste of the product gained popularity and was accepted by the masses,” said Inoue.
