“There’s just so much cooking going on in the Japanese home that could be part of people’s lives, and what they’re looking for — the health benefits, the clean taste,” said famed New York French fusion chef David Bouley during a recent interview with The Japan Times. One of the first non-Japanese to be appointed a Japanese cuisine goodwill ambassador by the Japanese government in 2016, the Michelin-starred chef enthusiastically detailed the potential of Japanese food in the U.S. market.
The popularity of Japanese cuisine is surging worldwide and so are Japan’s food-related exports. The government is intent on making the country an export power and has set a goal to boost the value of its exports to ¥2 trillion by 2025 and ¥5 trillion by 2030 — a more than fivefold increase from the 2019 figure of ¥912.1 billion.