This symposium aims to examine the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on food system and depict the outlook of the Japanese food system in post-COVID-19 era based on the outcomes of last year's symposium, additional information, and the characteristics of COVID-19 control measures, which restricted the movement of people. We received presentations on four different aspects of the food system: food consumption, food processing（B2C business）, wholesale, and tourism. The first presentation examines food consumption behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic period. It shows the overviews of changes in food consumption behavior based on the text analysis of previous studies and discusses the potential structural changes that may have influence on consumption behavior after the pandemic through micro data analysis. The second presentation focuses on food processing industry during COVID-19 pandemic. From the viewpoint of B2C food business, it examines changes in the Japanese and US market and problems in supply chains during the pandemic period. The third presentation analyzes the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on seafood supply chain. The wholesale market system still plays a major role in seafood supply chain and central wholesale markets has an essential role. It discusses the COVID-19 crisis and its countermeasures using Toyosu market as an example owing to the perspective of its public nature. The final presentation covers rural tourism as a form of the tourism industry, which has been affected by the pandemic. It investigates the rural tourism in Kurume city, Fukuoka Prefecture and examines the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on farm managements involving rural tourism, their countermeasures, and the impact on the growth strategy of rural tourism in the area.

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This paper examines food consumption behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are numerous studies on this topic. Therefore, this paper first conducted a quantitative text analysis for an overview of the related studies. The results showed that previous studies examined changes in consumption behavior and lifestyles, the impact on food security, and the state of the food system in a crisis from various perspectives. Some studies focused on consumption behaviors that involve a degree of irrationality, such as panic buying and food stigmatization. On the one hand, some studies showed that undesirable eating habits increased during the pandemic. On the other hand, many of the studies pointed to the possibility of diets changing for the better by reaffirming the importance of sustainability, health, and local food systems. This study used scanner-based panel data of beer, olive oil, and potato chips sales. We analyzed differences in consumption behavior before and after the pandemic. The results show that the consumption of higher priced products increased during the pandemic, which suggests that some consumers may have accepted the added value of these food products. It is therefore worth noting that pandemics do not necessarily have only negative effects on food consumption.

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This paper reports on issues directly faced by the supply chain because of changes in consumer behavior under the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as on the ways that food companies have responded to such changes. Morinaga & Co., Ltd., which has been aggressively expanding overseas, has been used as the case study. Consumers are forced to adapt their consumption patterns to changes brought about by the pandemic and alter their purchasing behavior accordingly. Meanwhile, food companies must devise marketing strategies in response. In addition, food companies pursuing overseas expansion must respond flexibly to any significant changes in the supply chain.

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This paper examines the ideal seafood wholesale market system assumed for future natural disasters from the viewpoint of publicness by analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the seafood wholesale market and the response of market participants. As a result of the case analysis targeting the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market-Toyosu Market, the following points were revealed: a）The market has been severely affected by the pandemic; b）Through appropriate responses by all market participants, the market was able to fulfill its social responsibilities by continuing the market operations and providing a new public service of ensuring food security; c）Nevertheless, market participants are in a situation where they do not have the support to justify the cost of risk-sharing. In order for the wholesale market system in an emergency to function as a “social infrastructure” with robustness, it is necessary to recognize the new public service of ensuring food security and to consider policies to guarantee its publicness.

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This article explores the influence of COVID-19 on farm managements that operate rural tourism businesses and their COVID-19 countermeasures. The surveyed region was around Minoh-Hokuroku region in the southern Fukuoka prefecture, well-known for rural tourism with an urban neighborhood. I conducted qualitative research on 9 farms and quantitative analysis using 51 valid responses to a structured questionnaire. The covariance structure analysis shows the relationships among sales changes in all individual business divisions together and individual divisions as well. The negative effects of COVID-19 on the demand for rural tourism and farm managements operating rural tourism businesses were found to be less severe when compared to the general tourism industry. The reasons are as follows. First, because in rural tourism, tourists mainly use their own cars and engage in leisure activities outside, many farms did not experience a major decrease in visitors. Second, farms have diversified their businesses, and thus, showed robustness to the risk. Third, some farms showed resilience by employing their own management skills. Based on the findings, a viable growth strategy in the post COVID-19 scenario could be to form a rural sightseeing district through cooperation between core resilient farms that have information transmission capacity using IT and the ability to attract customers and robust farms that can provide diverse rural tourism activities.

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