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Japan

Panasonic To Stop Making Rice Cookers in Japan After Six Decades (bloomberg.com) 101

Posted by msmash from the end-of-an-era dept.
Despite being the birthplace of the humble rice cooker, a decline in appetites for the grain and cost savings to be found elsewhere are prompting Panasonic to end production in Japan. From a report: Instead, the Osaka-based manufacturer will transfer production to the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou by June 2023, according to media reports. The move by Panasonic, which has made its popular rice cookers in its home country since 1956, symbolizes a shift underway in a country that once led the development of a device now ubiquitous throughout Asia. But Japan's shrinking and aging population and changing lifestyle habits among the young have seen rice consumption more than halve since the mid-1960s.
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Panasonic To Stop Making Rice Cookers in Japan After Six Decades More

Panasonic To Stop Making Rice Cookers in Japan After Six Decades

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  • It's Panasonic's own fault (Score:4, Interesting)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @12:12PM (#63179500) Homepage Journal

    I've been using the same rice cooker for 20 years. One of the few appliances I have left that just keeps running, built to the old philosophy of consumer products. Modern appliances break after a few years or are horribly expensive, sometimes both.

    • So, you defend planned obsolescence, right?

      • Actually, to me it sounds like he does the exact opposite. If anything, he's looking back wistfully to a time when things were built to last.

        • They weren't built to last. The cost of shipping them by steam boat back to Japan for repair under warranty and then paying to have it shipped back by steam boat was pretty high. So they were made to not fail during the warranty period. Contrast modern day where chinese crap is made so cheaply and with no warranty whatsoever that you can just throw it away and buy a new one after each use.

          • Well, yes and no.

            I'm old enough to remember when TVs cost the equivalent of a month's wage and more. Today, that would be somewhere between 2000 and 4000 bucks. And I'm not talking about a 100" that can do everything and cook coffee, I'm talking about some plain, normal, crappy old CRT TV. But it had color!

            I remember our first TV lasted for about 10 years. By that time, it was already so outdated that we had to get most of our programs from the VCR attached to it because it didn't have the "high" channels a

            • I remember our first TV lasted for about 10 years.

              Is that all? We got a cabinet-model Packard Bell TV back in the early '50s. It lasted long enough for us to watch the first Moon Walk. That's built to last!

              • My current TV was purchased new in 2007. Something on the the power board went out recently; I replaced the whole board. I hope to use it for many more years. It's mainly a secondary monitor for one of the computers at this point, can't even remember when we used the ATSC tuner last.

            • And now there this awful "smart TV" thing, where firmware becomes obsolete (and are not more supported/updated) after few years...

            • After getting repaired like 5 or 6 times

              Hah! Do you remember the old vacuum tube testing machines in the stores, where when your TV quit you could take the tubes you suspected out and take them in, where the tester would tell you which one(s) were bad, you could find replacements right there on shelves next to or under the tester?

              I barely remember that, but I do remember it.

              These days, I see 100" LED TVs priced cheaper than the 32" I bought quite a few years ago. And that's not accounting for inflation.

            • I took a VCR to get fixed many years ago, the tech got all excited and showed me the insides once the case was removed. He said the manufacturer (Hitachi maybe?) was trying to get Sears business so they were selling units to them below cost. The VCR had a massive frame (I could have jumped on it), metal gearing and pullies. He said nobody made them that way any more!
        • Yeah, I agree now (reading the post with more care :-])

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Indeed. We have a Japan-made microwave oven purchased about 25 years ago. The plastic is yellowing and it has an 80s-ish style, but the damned thing won't die. Seems the Golden Age of Quality is behind us.

      • 1. Survivor Bias. You remember the stuff from back then that lasted, but forget the stuff that didn't.
        2. That said, the story is pretty much the same with me. Our family's first microwave lasted over 20 years. Seriously, bought to warm up my bottles after Dad had to do it once, so the thing was darn near as old as me. Had it well past when I could drink. My first microwave lasted over 20 years as well - through several moves. But all the replacements? Around 5.

        That said - the replacement microwaves

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ebh ( 116526 )

      Those appliances we've been using for decades were also horribly expensive by today's standards. My basic low-end GE microwave that I bought in 1990 is still going strong, but I also paid over $750 in today's dollars for it. When I was a kid, a simple two-slice toaster could run over 100 2023 dollars. (But no self-respecting middle class suburbanite ever paid for something like that when there were S&H Green Stamps!)

      • Those appliances we've been using for decades were also horribly expensive by today's standards.

        I bought a bread machine on July 2nd, 1995 for $85.85. I know because for some reason I stapled the receipt to the inside cover of the recipe book that came with it. I use it pretty much every week.

        The rice cooker I bought at around the same time isn't around any more, but that's just because it was a very simple model and I bought a much fancier one on October 11th, 2006 for $29.99 and so far it isn't showing any problems. I'll have to see if it makes it to 20 years, but it's already well past 15.

        I'm sure

      • My purchase was only 20 years ago, inflation is not really that significant maybe only a 50% increase. This was the bottom end "dumb" rice cooker and it was about $20-30 so maybe $50 in today's dollars. Full disclosure, it doesn't actually work that well because it's like 1970's technology built in the early 2000's. The design is little more than a aluminum bowl with a lid, heating element, and a thermostat with thermo-mechanical hysteresis to shut the element off a little bit after it has reached near boil

    • I am using one that I got in 2003 from a friend who used it in a Vietnamese restaurant that I also worked at(it's how we became friends) back in 1990, so it's over 30 years old and going strong. We bought a backup from Goodwill a couple years ago when I saw it and recognized it as the same model. I doubt I'll ever need it. For the record, if you eat rice very often you need to check to see if yours might contain arsenic. It's a real problem and if you use brown rice then it's a REAL problem for you. There a

  • I"m still getting a Zojirushi Made in Japan cooker, the small one.

    Panasonic has been cutting down for years. Their home-theater projector got discontinued around 2018. Their HT receivers, a few years before that. They're only playing the professional market now. I've had 3 of their cine projectors -- the two earlier ones were made in Japan, the last one in China.

    And now this news. It pains me to see Japanese names having to resort to outsourcing production.

    So, instead of Pana, I'll just get my rice coo

    • A higher-end model with a stainless pot (rather than non-stick) would be nice...

      • Hmmm... can't agree with that one. Honestly, basic rice cooking is one of the very few times when I think non-stick is absolutely superior. Unless, that is, you like to peel that crusty, crackly film of rice off the bottom of the pan, salt it, and eat it like a potato chip. And... there is something to be said for that.

    • their good microwaves are still made in Japan, the commercial ones. I got one, has a nice "made in Japan" label on the front.

      Cost 2x what even a pretty good home one costs now. For interest I managed to find an approximate price that my mum paid for the first microwave she got when I was a kid. About the same number of pounds it turns out, so way way more inflation adjusted.

  • How to Cook Rice Like a Cooker (Score:3)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @12:19PM (#63179518) Homepage
    I learned how to make better rice by looking how a rice cooker works. A rice cooker shuts off when the bottom surface of the pan-thing become hot, because the water on the bottom is gone. So, I keep dragging the ride to the side to see if there is water left. Once it is gone, the rice is done.

    • DO NOT TOUCH THE RICE. You can stick a thermometer in, you can rotate the pot to see if water remains. DO NOT TOUCH THE RICE. You want good rice, the magic is to let the grains stay at rest while it cooks. DO NOT TOUCH THE RICE. This is why a rice cooker is so good. This is why a consistent method of cooking rice in a pot is so good. Any other way, especially what you describe is absolute madness. DO NOT TOUCH THE RICE.

      • Also: Opening the lid on any pot cooking rice releases the steam in the pot above the boiling water. Fail. The brother up thread done goofed. Bad. Ten lashes with a white rice grain. Minimum.

      • And DO NOT OPEN THE LID.

        Steam is your friend.

        Good rice needs practice and knowing your stove. After a few pots, you know how your stove and your pot works and you know when your rice is good and done, keep that lid on!

        • "Steam is your friend."

          I know. I really liked Portal.

        • I think this is also why the better rice cookers start looking a lot like pressure cookers. Keep the water inside the system, don't let it out, and you get more consistent results, using less energy, as you're no longer boiling away as much water into escaping steam, which takes a lot of energy.

          Hell, my pressure cooker has a rice mode, and the only reason I haven't used it is that I don't need like 12 cups of rice. The minimum batch for my pressure cooker for rice is more than the largest batch for my ric

        • I've never tried a rice cooker before.

          I live in LA and we eat a lot of rice down here (red beans and rice, gumbo with rice, etc).

          I've always thought it was dead easy to cook rice.

          2-to-1 ratio liquid to rice.

          I use a gas stove, easy to watch flame for cooking temp.

          Anyway, put in your water/stocks and maybe a touch of salt, bring to a boil....pour in your rice, stir. When it comes back to a low boil, put on the lid, turn the heat down to low and let it go for 22 minutes.

          There should be slight whisps of

      • Meanwhile in Italy, if the cook is not sweating bullets while stirring the risotto, she's not doing it right. Hint: depends on the grain kind.

        • Hint: depends on the grain kind.

          And the recipe. Risotto is a creamy rice with the grains bound together by a dense liquid, while other recipes like Paella have dry and loose grains.

      • I just get a slice of bread from the bag. Those things are AWESOME!

    • I am now expectantly checking Amazon for the self-help book "How to Cook Rice Like a Cooker" by E.M. Brenda

  • Possibly this move is related to the market moving to ceramic-lined inner pots, so as they were re-tooling anyway they took the opportunity to move to a lower-wage facility. Ceramic pots change the economics of the space, insofar as teflon-style pots need to be replaced every 3-5 years and ceramic pots appear to last much longer, so consumers will become willing to invest more in functionality if there's no longer the expectation that the pot will wear out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The two big brands are Zojirushi and Hitachi, both of whom manufacture in Japan. They put a lot of effort into R&D to give people a reason to upgrade.

      Panasonic just decided that as they were not doing so well anyway, and while they had foreign sales people outside of East Asia don't upgrade until it breaks. Not worth the R&D investment.

  • ... before corporations pick another borderline slave labour manufacturing market? Given the Uigar issue and the sabre rattling and island building that is a borderline threat to taiwan, vietnam and the phillipines that Chinas been doing in the south china sea, just what will it take before CEOs start putting global social responsibility before a slight uptick in profits?

    • >>just what will it take before CEOs start putting global social responsibility before a slight uptick in profits?

      Consumers have to stop buying. CEO's goals are entirely short-term profits, not social, political, environmental or moral concerns. Ford, IBM, Dow, Woolworths, etc. kept doing business in Nazi Germany [toptenz.net] as long as they legally could (and often beyond).

  • RTFA (Score:3)

    by dogsbreath ( 730413 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @12:58PM (#63179638)

    They aren't stopping production.

    They are moving production to China. Panasonic is still making rice cookers.

    This is the perfect example of an abysmally stupid /. article. Two sentences behind a paywall, and that links back to Yahoo Japan. Semi sensational title which really just says Panasonic found a cheaper way to manufacture a kitchen appliance.

    • You are missing the point. Panasonic moving rice cooker production to China is akin to RCA moving their last bit of manufacturing overseas (to Japan or Taiwan).

      • "Panasonic moving rice cooker production to China is akin to RCA moving their last bit of manufacturing overseas (to Japan or Taiwan)."

        You mean RCA hasn't already done that?

      • Not missing the point at all. RCA did that a long long time ago as has everyone else, and RCA doesn't even exist other than as a brand logo for cheap TVs. This happens all the time and is no longer news.

        There is a story here but neither the /. summary nor the silly original article dive into it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dmomo ( 256005 )

      I don't know... it seemed pretty clear to me... with the whole "IN JAPAN" part. Many things are sensationalized click-bait on slashdot, but this isn't one. I'm sorry you misread the tile.

  • I don't know why anyone would need a rice cooker anyway.

    A good copper bottom steel poot is all you need to make perfect rice every time.

    • I don't know why anyone would need a rice cooker anyway.

      A good copper bottom steel poot is all you need to make perfect rice every time.

      Don't you also need a heat source? And some sort of control over the heat source? How does your poot reduce the amount of heat when the rice reaches perfect?

      My rice cooking technique is: add rice, add water, plug in, press start, leave. I return sometime during the next couple of hours and eat perfect rice. Often I run 4-8 miles while the rice is cooking. I'd be worried that your poot would be full of charred rice by the time I get out of the shower after my run.

    • A good copper bottom steel poot is all you need to make perfect rice every time.

      Do the shrimpies go in the poot before or after the rice?

    • A good copper bottom steel poot and forty to forty five minutes of your time stirring it. Or you put the rice into the rice cooker, go about your day, and you come back to perfectly cooked rice. I hope you can see why the latter is appealing to many of us especially those of us who cook rice every day.

      • I hope the GP isn't stirring it in the poot. I don't have room for yet another cooking thing and don't cook rice regularly, but I cook it.

        I just use a medium poot, stir up some rice and a little butter on heat, put the water and let it boil, about a 5 minute process. Then I turn it down to low and set a timer on my Apple watch depending on white or brown or whatever and go about my business.

        Fluff it in the poot and yummy rice. But if I cooked it a more than once a week I'd find a place for a cookier. I have

        • This is much different than the rice you would get from a rice cooker. I'm not saying it wouldn't be good. I've made rice this way before and it's tasty. But it's not the same rice.
  • While I have no experience with Panasonic rice cookers, I have used Zojirushi rice cookers and what I have to say might be useful to Slashdotters. Zojirushi is a Japanese company known for their rice cookers and many people consider theirs to be the best. But they aren't cheap. They have all kinds of price ranges. Most are made in Japan and the quality is considered top notch. I bought one of their rare ones that was made in China because it came with a steamer tray, which I have found to be usefu
    • The Zojirushi rice cooker is great. But it has very little to do with manufacturing. It's just a resistive heat element and pot. Not much different than a crock pot. They are so good because the heat is applied intermittently in increasing amounts in order to bring the temperature up and make perfectly cooked rice. The physical hardware needs to be reliable (a relay and a resistive heating element are pretty easy to produce very reliable units) but it's the software that makes the brand so much better.

  • Almost every rice cooker listing has a buyer asking whether the cooker is made in Japan.

    As far as I can tell, only Zojirushi and Tiger have their mid-tier and up cookers made in Japan. Even the mid tier Panasonic are made elsewhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by keltor ( 99721 ) *
      There are about a dozen brands that have MIJ cookers sold in Japan and not just the higher up tiers. It's even possible that the JDM Panasonics might still be MIJ because they are completely different units (all rice cookers in Japan are 100V units not 110V or 220V).
  • People buy rice cookers that aren't made by Zojirushi?
    • Many people's first rice cookers are not Zojirushi. At some point, many of them learn about rice. I still use my non-Zojirushi to cook oatmeal, though.
  • I am happy I have a good working rice cooker. I try to avoid buying things made in China, especially things that touch my food or stay on my skin. Good Luck if you have to sue them.

  • You don't HAVE to be Japanese to cook rice.

  • As a Brit, I don't have a leg to stand on - we literally sold the family silver years ago. It's a slippery slope though, once you outsource the rice cookers, next it's the chip production (no, the silicon kind) and just like that your famous industry has disappeared to save a few yen.
  • There are a dozen MIJ brands in Japan + a few like Cuckoo that are MIK or other places like that. Nobody even likes Panasonic cookers, they were kinda popular at one point because for WHATEVER reason they were the only brand that sold black for a while when black wasn't a cool color. (And yeah back in the 1980s and before when they were kinda of associated with "Rice Cooker!" and called Matsushita.)

  • Toshiba is the best example of a Japanese brand that goes down the drain by moving it's production to China for some extract profit.
    Whenever production is moved to China, it's hard to maintain the level of quality.
    Every Toshiba product I bought over the past year is having serious problems.
    My Toshiba washing machine all had stainless steel screws on the outside but underneath the inner drum, normal steel bolts and screws were used.
    Someone in China probably replaced the stainless components with cheap steel

  • We're "white" and we never used a rice cooker. My Dad taught me how to make it using a measuring cup and a literal "rule of thumb" about how much water to put in, by sticking your thumb in the pot (yes, while it's cold, so shuddup). Of course this required adjustment when moving to a different pot and/or stove; but it hasn't been difficult for me.

    The first time I saw a rice cooker was in a college study group, at the apartment of one of our team members who was Korean. I had been curious to know if there

  • ...Panasonic's rice cooker, and their other cooking appliances kinda suck and it's kind of known. Like, they're not as reliable as Tiger for rice cookers (for me, since I'm Taiwanese, it's Tiger, Zojirushi, then Tatung.) For general steamer, it's Tatung all the way. Every Tiger rice cooker I've had lasted 10+ years at minimum. Here as other brands die at about 2~4. Not only that, Tiger brand rice cookers tend to make more fluffier rice. For me, it's less that they're being forced and rice consumption being

  • The only reason Panasonic is no longer making Rice Cookers in Japan is the same reason why it no longer makes microwave ovens in Japan: to increase profit.

    That is the ONLY reason.

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