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fact that it began to offer to their members organically grown produce
directly from the farm, at prices lower than those at conventional supermarkets,
contributed greatly to its expansion. As mentioned earlier, public
concern about food safety and environmental damage steadily increased
from the 1970s and Seikyō capitalized on this trend. Its affiliation with the
trade union movement and the Japanese Communist Party and the Social
Democratic Party (formerly Japan Socialist Party) is also responsible for
the fact that many low-income and working-class families do their shopping
at Seikyō. The co-op operates through retail outlets and through a
group ordering system, the core of which is the han (delivery post) composed
of several households. Deliveries are made weekly, and consist of
a variety of organically grown fresh produce, as well as non-brand-name
processed foods that are obtained through direct marketing structures and
face-to-face negotiations with organic farmers’ groups. 41
With more than 14 million member households throughout Japan,
Seikyō is a major player in the Japanese organic farming movement, greatly
influencing the direction in which the movement progresses. However,
although the largest, it is merely one out of many similar organizations
that operate all over Japan. During the 1990s, for example, more than 900
groups of consumers have established co-partnerships with local organic
farmer groups. 42 Such initiatives give farmers an opportunity to become
less dependent on the conventional distribution systems of wholesalers,
while providing consumers with a reliable source for their food supply. As
Moen observes, ‘direct-marketing relations give both farmers and consumers
the opportunity to establish long-term relations based on trust.
Contracting with the same farmers year after year, consumers are able to
identify who grew their produce and consumer visits to farms are learning
experiences for both consumer and farm families.’ 43
Considering the enormous commercial potential of the organic food
market in Japan, it does not seem surprising that the mainstream industry
has recently expressed a growing interest in organic farming. One of the
pioneers in this respect was the hamburger chain Mos Burger. Since the
establishment of its first outlet in 1972, and despite the fierce competition
of McDonald’s, the enterprise managed to increase its market share steadily:
from 50 stores in 1976, to 100 in 1979, 200 in 1983, 500 in 1986, 1000 in 1991
and 1500 in 1998. 44 The story goes that Mos Burger developed its marketing
strategy by studying that of McDonald’s and then doing the opposite
in order to exploit a different market niche – thick French fries instead of
thin, stores on side streets and alleys instead of McDonald’s main street
locations, emphasis on quality instead of McDonald’s speed and low price. 45
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