Will Chinese Shoppers Buy Expensive Japanese Rice?

Japanese rice has finally made its way onto the shelves of certain supermarkets in China:

SHANGHAI — Sales of Japanese rice began in Beijing and Shanghai on Thursday, targeting mainly wealthy consumers in China, the world’s biggest rice consumer.

The price of the Japanese rice is more than 20 times that of Chinese rice, but as concerns about food safety continue in China, Japanese officials hold hopes that “tasty” and “safe” Japanese rice will be well received, mainly by wealthy consumers.

This Japanese TV news report adds some details on the difficulties facing Japanese rice sales in China. In addition to the obvious price issue, there is also the fact that Chinese rice producers have simply copied the brand name of the Japanese rice and are selling their Chinese rice as “Japanese” rice:

A news camera finds a Japanese rice farmer who is laboring in the fields to sell his product to China and tells him that Chinese rice farmers are already selling their rice under the same name. The farmer is disappointed, but there isn’t much he can do to protect his brand name in China…