The significance of economic variables such as price and income in food consumption has weakened since the 1980s. New approaches in food consumption analysis have been developed in order to adapt to these changes. Information plays a key role in analyzing food consumption behavior; information also affects the food market and competition in food industries. The evaluation method of non-market goods helps clarify the values of various food attributes. With the changing circumstances of Japanese families, owing to the falling birthrate, aging population, and trend toward later marriages, empirical studies on the demographic characteristics of family members and aspects of the household production theory improve our understanding of food consumption behavior in Japan.

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Substantial issues of food risk have been changing as the food system developed in the postwar period. Although food shortage and nutritional deficiency as classical food risk were overcome several decades ago, we have been always challenging the other food risk problems. More attentions to risk trade-off structure should be paid to recognize coherent policies for food safety. Nowadays, food trust restoration is an important agenda at the center of consumer's concerns. Public distrust arose from many food accidents and mislabeling incidents that were uncovered since 2000. In this study a conceptual framework is proposed to analyze consumer's belief on food safety and specify functions of stakeholders including risk assessors, risk managers, entrepreneurs, and consumers through food chains. The framework shows that accumulation of food safety practice which is optimally conducted by each stakeholder leads to overall trustworthy food system and assures consumer's security. The public trust for scientific foundation on food safety administration was jeopardized by problems of radioactive substance dispersed due to explosion of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. It is a top priority issue to restore the trust at the present time.

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This study analyses new dimensions of food enterprises from the perspectives of global activities and global entrepreneurship. Japan's current food sector is facing a transition period due to the decline in population growth rate as well as globalization. Decreased population contributed to the decrease in production and consumption of foods, which ultimately accelerated the activities to find out new markets at home and abroad since 1990s. Under this circumstance, food sector in Japan needs to be rearranged to cope with the global market as well as maintaining the stability and sustainability of the domestic market. The food system in Japan has been composed of and characterized by agriculture and related industries such as food processing, food distribution and service. Accordingly, the maturity of food markets and the scale-down tendency of consumption demand depend upon each constituent of the food system. To resolve the situation, a standard of global entrepreneurship particularly to make cooperation and linkage with rapidly increasing Asian market is essential.

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The following is a summary of this paper. From the viewpoint of the food system, an integrated approach which takes advantages of the characteristics of both the Food Industry Cluster and the farmer's complex business, as well as the integration of the supply chain and value chain where farm producers and consumers are connected, are required for effective regional invigoration. The farmer's complex business puts emphasis on strategies of integrating production, processing, and sales from an individual farm producer's standpoint, therefore it is essential to link up with the Food Industry Cluster in order to maximize regional income through promotions of job creation and effective use of regional resources. The Food Industry Cluster creates the cooperation among agriculture, the food industry, related industries, and industries in unrelated fields through a network which organically combines regional food materials, human resources, technologies, and other resources, and brings about technical transfer and innovation from food related enterprises outside the regions. Furthermore, there is a necessity for a platform to be formed by the public sector, thus a research institution or university may be best to play a key role as manager to formulate strategies for regional development and sustainability.

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On March 11, 2011, the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake wreaked havoc across northeastern Japan. The disaster caused a serious nuclear accident at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, which led to radiation leakage across northern and eastern Japan. Concerns over the radioactive contamination of food have grown among consumers after the accident. The Japanese government has issued certain legal guidelines for withdrawing food from markets. However, the demand for agricultural products from Fukushima prefecture and neighboring areas decreased because of contamination concerns. In this paper, the research estimated consumer WTA of spinach and milk from Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures using the data collected by internet surveys conducted from March 2011 to February 2012 with married women living in Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas. In the estimate this research divided the WTA into two parts: 1) health risk evaluation, the evaluation of products based on health risk from radioactive contamination, and 2) origin evaluation, based on the origin of products without contamination. The main results are as follows: (1) Consumer evaluations were different between Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas. The health risk evaluation was similar in both areas; however, the origin evaluation was different between the areas. (2) The health risk evaluation increased dramatically in August 2011. This increase might be caused by cesium contamination of beef via contaminated feeds, which was discovered in July 2011. The results imply that consumers behave toward food contamination in both rational and emotional ways. To recover from the depressed demand in the affected areas, the Japanese government will need to acknowledge and address both the rational and emotional responses of consumers.

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In this paper, we established a regional brand evaluation model of Japanese green tea and clarified the source of the brand power by questionnaire survey analysis for consumers.
In the brand evaluation model, brand image and quality evaluation are consisted of brand recognition and drinking experience, while a brand loyalty is formed by quality evaluation.
1. Not only the quality of products but also the brand image is important for creating a regional brand of green tea.
2. There is a positive correlation between the degree of drinking experience and the brand awareness.
3. A clear brand image is created in the brand that has the high level of awareness. And, consumers think highly of regional brand's quality. But, there is not remarkable difference of the image and quality among each regional brand and the product differentiation is not established enough.
4. It is difficult to make a loyalty for a regional brand of green tea. But, drinking and purchasing experience have positive effects to make a loyalty of regional brand.

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In the event of food contamination, how food companies promptly reduce damage to protect the health of consumers is an important issue. However, researchers have rarely focused on the theme, and so far, no theory on crisis management for food contamination has been presented. This paper presents a principle of the crisis management conducted by food manufacturers. First, this study constructs a hypothetical principle which includes requisite operations categorized into five elements (detection of crisis outbreak, emergency response, investigation of contamination status, remedial action, and preparedness), and methods of conducting the operations. Second, it validates the principle by using data from the case studies of good practices of two Japanese brew makers. The result shows that the hypothetical principle essentially conforms to the practices in the cases. Additionally, this paper provides an insight into the methods through which information on non-conforming products is shared by staff in a food manufacturer, through which food manufacturers determine products to be recalled, and through which they issue a press release.

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In food safety regulation, control of the checks for compliance with legal requirements plays an important role in increasing the level of food safety, by identifying non-compliances and defining the necessary remedial measures. In addition, understanding the situations and problems on-site is important for reviewing the effectiveness of the current measures and for considering the next steps.
In Japan, issues such as how the official control system is arranged and what type of system is required have, to date, not been sufficiently discussed.In this article, I have identified the following problems in the Japanese food safety control system. First, the present system is not adequate for ensuring the effectiveness and reliability of control activities. Second, the framework for the selection of food businesses and sampling has not been clearly identified at the national level. Third, the results of some controls at the local government level have not been collated at the national level in such a way that identifies problems.
In contrast, the European Union has reformed the food safety control system and has introduced a risk-based control system, in which control is enforced in proportion to the risk. In this article, I focus on the German system and clarify how the above three problems are addressed. In Germany, 16 states are responsible for enforcing control. Regarding the aforementioned first point, although there is some variation among states, there is an audit system for veterinary offices, which enforces control regarding food safety. With respect to the second point, a common framework for the selection of food businesses has been established among states. According to this, each food business is assessed and the frequency of inspection is decided. Regarding the third point, the results of controls at the local level are transmitted and aggregated at the national level so that it is possible to understand which problem occurs at which stage in the food chain. With reference to these points, it is necessary to discuss how to develop the food safety control system in Japan.

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