The fallout from Iran's airstrike is roiling Japan's consumer goods market across the sea. With no heavy oil to run its equipment, a production line at a well-known Japanese snack maker has ground to a halt, and rumors on social media that toilet paper will be in short supply have stoked public anxiety. As the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global crude shipments, became reality, energy-supply jitters are rapidly spilling over into a crisis in Japan's real economy.
After the United States and Israel carried out airstrikes on Iran on the 28th, the ripple effects reached Japan in less than two weeks. Sanposeika (Yamayoshi Confectionery), a mid-sized confectionery maker based in Asago, Hyogo Prefecture, halted production of core potato chips, including its flagship Wasabeef as well as Shiobeef and Mentaiko Mayo Beef, starting on the 12th, the 13th day after the airstrike.
To fry potatoes, a large boiler must be run to heat cooking oil, but the supply route for the heavy oil used to power this boiler has been completely cut off. According to the Asahi Shimbun and others, the plant was known to consume 28,000 to as much as 30,000 liters of heavy oil per week. But as the escalating Middle East crisis wiped out any way to secure fuel from suppliers overnight, the company decided to shut its doors.
Rivals in the potato chip market, Calbee and Koikeya, are relatively larger corporations and do not directly use heavy oil in their manufacturing processes and equipment operations, so they avoided the immediate crunch. However, if the situation drags on, they too will find it hard to escape knock-on effects such as rising prices for packaging materials. Plastics and synthetic fibers, which are mainly used for packaging, are made from naphtha, a basic petrochemical feedstock refined from crude oil. Unlike gasoline or diesel, naphtha has little in the way of long-term stockpiles by country, so any supply cutoff poses an immediate threat to operating production lines for essential consumer goods.
News that a popular potato chip factory had stopped due to a shortage of heavy oil heightened insecurity among Japanese consumers. The anxiety spilled into panic buying of daily necessities. Recently, on major Japanese online communities such as X, a groundless rumor quickly spread that toilet paper supplies could be cut off due to a spike in crude prices.
Toilet paper is made from wood, but crude oil plays a key role throughout production, processing, packaging, and distribution. Immense energy is used to cook (digest), dry, and press pulp through the entire process. Major additives such as bleach, softeners, and wet strength agents are largely petrochemical products. On top of that, plastics like polyethylene (PE) used for bundled packaging are also crude-based, leaving the entire production stage directly exposed to oil price swings. In particular, toilet paper is a typical low-value-added, mass-consumption good with large volume and low unit price. Because transport costs make up a large share, when oil prices surge as they are now, higher logistics costs are passed on to consumer prices immediately.
Having experienced national shortages of daily necessities during the Great East Japan Earthquake and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Japanese began to panic, buying up toilet paper. As baseless fake news piled on and further burdened shopping-basket prices, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry took the unusual step on the 19th of issuing an official government statement to calm public opinion.
Quoting an official announcement by the Japan Household Paper Association, the ministry stressed that "the raw materials for toilet paper are mainly recovered wastepaper and pulp sourced domestically, and do not rely at all on imports from the Middle East." It also said, "There are ample inventories in the market and sufficient spare capacity at factories," and urged, "We ask consumers to make calm judgments based on accurate information."
Japan imports about 93% of its crude oil from the Middle East. Almost all of that massive volume must pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a conflict zone. The Japanese government says it currently holds national and private petroleum reserves equivalent to 254 days (about eight months). It has enough leeway to avoid an immediate, large-scale power blackout or transportation chaos. But if crude imports through the Strait of Hormuz continue to stall as they are now, the situation is unlikely to stop at potato chip production halts or toilet paper scare buying. There is a high chance that operations at auto parts plants, which widely use crude-refined materials including naphtha, will be suspended, or that front-line hospitals will face disruptions in medical device supplies.
By contrast, Korea, which is in a similar geopolitical position, is feeling relatively less immediate impact than Japan. According to data from the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC), as of 2025 Korea's dependence on Middle Eastern crude is about 69%. Korea has significantly reduced its Middle East reliance, which once far exceeded 80%, by diversifying crude imports to include U.S. shale oil and other regions. However, if maritime logistics paralysis lasts longer than expected, Korea's economy will also find it hard to avoid broad damage from supply instability and surging oil prices.