Vegetable delivery services are becoming more popular in Japan as the gaps between their prices and the prices of vegetables sold at supermarkets and other stores narrow. In some cases, consumers can buy vegetables at lower prices through delivery services than through retail outlets.
Their popularity is rising among health-conscious people because they handle vegetables grown organically or with reduced use of pesticides. In addition, they allow orders to be placed over the internet.
Among delivery service operators, Tokyo-based Radishbo-ya Co., a subsidiary of mobile phone carrier NTT Docomo Inc., sells a half of a napa cabbage for around ¥265 and a whole cabbage for around ¥300.
In November, sales of Radishbo-ya’s assorted box of vegetables for new subscribers, which costs ¥1,980, had been up about 50 percent in terms of volume from October, as of the middle of the month.
At Oisix Inc., which has been offering fresh food delivery services since 2000, sales in October of a box of one or two kinds of vegetables or fruits jumped 70 percent compared with June.
The number of orders in October of a trial vegetable box at Daichi Wo Mamoru Kai, which was founded in Chiba Prefecture in 1975, increased more than 50 percent from August.
(1 Japanese Yen=0.0089 USD)
