BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan’s competition watchdog has raided some of the country’s biggest ice cream makers for allegedly forming a cartel to raise the price of their products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the firms, including Meiji and Pocky maker Ezaki Glico, said this week that they have been subject to an “on-site inspection” by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) over suspicions that they fixed the prices of frozen desserts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JFTC said it is not releasing a statement regarding the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The companies are suspected of inflating ice cream prices beyond increases in the cost of raw materials, even as the country faces a hot summer with record high temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The six firms that were raided on Tuesday were Meiji, Morinaga Milk Industry, Lotte, Morinaga, Ezaki Glico and Akagi Nyugyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BBC has contacted the companies for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The firms improperly raised prices of popular desserts “several times by 5-10% over the years”, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK, citing anonymous sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brands distribute their products wholesale to supermarkets and convenience stores across Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morinaga Milk, Glico and Meiji said in separate statements that they would co-operate with the authorities’ investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As reported by some media outlets today, our company has been subject to an on-site inspection by the Fair Trade Commission on suspicion of violating the Antimonopoly Act in connection with the setting of sales prices for ice cream and other products,” Meiji said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We take this inspection very seriously and will cooperate fully with the Fair Trade Commission’s investigation,” the Hello Panda snack maker wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Glico said: “We will respond in good faith to the Fair Trade Commission’s investigation and cooperate fully.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this year, Japan unveiled a new name for days that reach 40C (104F) or above, after the country experienced its hottest summer on record in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: Japan’s competition watchdog has raided some of the country’s biggest ice cream makers for allegedly forming a cartel to raise the price of their products. Some of the firms, including Meiji and Pocky maker Ezaki Glico, said this week that they have been subject to an “on-site inspection” by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) over suspicions that they fixed the prices of frozen desserts. The JFTC said it is not releasing a statement regarding the investigation. The companies are suspected of inflating ice cream prices beyond increases in the cost of raw materials, even as the country faces… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58686,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58687,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58685\/revisions\/58687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}