Many Japanese who grew up in the 1950s still recall roba no panya, horse-drawn bakery wagons selling mushi-pan (steamed bread). Popularized by Kyoto-based bread manufacturer Vitamin Pan Rensa-ten Honbu in the latter part of the decade, by around 1960 the company boasted 160 roba no panya across the country, each selling around 1,000 mushi-pan a day.
Although the mobile stalls are now a rare sight (and have died out completely in the Kanto region due to increasingly strict traffic regulations), 10 Vitamin Pan franchise bakeries in Osaka, Mie, Tokushima, Kumamoto and other prefectures in western Japan still use roba no panya to sell their mushi-pan on the streets. These days, however, the horse-drawn roba no panya of the past have been replaced by motor vehicles or bicycles, a sign of Japan's economic development and changing traffic conditions.
According to Fumie Ogawa of Roba no Panya bakery in Tokushima Prefecture, changing times are behind the decline of the roba no panya. "It's difficult today to find people willing to do such a heavy-duty job for little money," she explains.