If you don’t end the war, you can’t have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don’t end the war?!

There are few desserts as beloved in Japan as pudding, though I always have to go through the long-winded discussion that this “pudding” is actually purin. It’s a type of firm custard served with a caramel topping and similar to a creme caramel or flan in other countries.

Its soft texture and gentle sweetness make it a treat that people of all ages can enjoy, and it has earned a long-standing reputation as one of Japan’s top-tier snacks. However, Japanese pudding is facing an existential crisis, and it’s all because of the ongoing war in Iran.

So far, Japan has managed to handle the oil crisis fairly well. A few people were panic-buying toilet paper for a while, but that’s par for the course, and gas prices have risen, but just a few months earlier, the government removed a tax on gasoline. As a result, gas prices basically just rose more or less back to their taxed levels which people always had to deal with.

On the other hand, cracks are beginning to appear in the country’s supply of naptha, an essential component in the production of plastics. Originally, the government said there was enough oil in reserves to last four months, but industries are saying the reality is only two months. As proof, some pudding makers are already announcing that they may not be able to produce any more by the end of May.

▼ Get some now, while it lasts.

The reason for this is that pudding is usually packaged in plastic cups, and without naptha, they won’t be able to make any more cups and have nothing to sell their pudding in.

Of course, alternatives such as paper and glass exist, but they would require a huge overhaul of manufacturing and still rely heavily on oil. Paper cups usually use a naptha-based film to waterproof the inside, and glass requires a great deal of heat to make. So, even if they went to the trouble of revamping their factories, they’d probably just end up in the same situation.

And although pudding makers are among the first to cry uncle at the current oil crisis, with plastic being such a big part of our daily lives, this is a problem that will affect just about every business out there at some point. Readers of the news were quick to point this out, too.

“If I look at supermarket shelves, I can’t find anything that isn’t plastic.”
“They won’t be able to build houses either.”
“They’re cutting off our pudding?”
“If they can’t make pudding then how can they make anything else?”
“So, charging for plastic bags was a good idea after all?!”
“This is even worse than rising prices. It’s just going away.”
“How many garbage bags do we have left as a country?”
“I read that tofu containers and plastic wrap are also in a bad situation.”

Now that they mention it, tofu has a very similar consistency to pudding, and has existed in Japan well before the advent of plastic packaging, or any kind of mass production for that matter. So, how did people buy it back then?

There were two ways, the first of which involved bringing your own bowl or bucket to the tofu shop and getting a fresh slice to take home. The other way was to wait for the Tofu Man to come to your neighborhood with a bucket of tofu. He’d announce his arrival by playing a horn called a charumera.

▼ You can still find guys pulling ramen carts through neighborhoods and playing a charumera these days. It’s kind of the same idea.

It seems like pudding makers should just abandon plastic altogether and consider hiring fleets of Pudding People to wander the streets playing horns and selling pudding to all the townsfolk of Japan. It would reduce waste, creates jobs, and be downright charming.

Source: Nikkei, Real Time News Navi, Twitter/@nikkei, Hachima Kiko
Photos ©SoraNews24
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