Tasty "ekiben" offerings from a longtime Shiga Prefecture company that were once popular at train stations around Japan are nearing the end of the line. 

The boxed lunch meals enjoyed by passengers of the Tokaido Shinkansen and JR Hokuriku Line for ages will be discontinued at the end of February.

Although the manufacturer in Shiga Prefecture had been selling the handmade lunches featuring local ingredients, it decided to withdraw due to the drop in the number of customers and rise in the cost of ingredients.

Railroad enthusiasts are sorry to see the ekiben go.

Izutsuya in Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, was founded in 1854, the first year of the five-year Ansei Era in the Edo Period (1603-1867), and originally ran a lodging for travelers in Nagahama in the prefecture.

Foreseeing the full opening of the Tokaido Line from Shinbashi to Kobe in 1889, the company relocated to Maibara and launched its ekiben business.

The company currently sells eight kinds of bento. Particularly well known is “Kohoku no ohanashi” at 1,480 yen including tax ($9.50), which went on sale in 1987 as “bullet train gourmet food” to coincide with the privatization of the Japanese National Railways that became the Japan Railways Group that year.

REMINISCENT OF GRANDMOTHER'S COOKING

Kohoku no ohanashi features roasted duck from the former Kohoku town in northern Shiga Prefecture, Japanese smelt stewed in soy sauce and sugar, “wakegi” tree onion seasoned with vinegared miso, pickled red turnip, seasonal “okowa” (cooked glutinous rice) laid on cherry leaves, among others.

They are reminiscent of what grandmothers cook and pack for their children who came to visit.

Other popular boxed lunches are, among others, “Omi-gyu oirimeshi” (1,480 yen including tax), featuring Omi beef sauteed with original sauce and placed on curry-flavored rice, and “Ganso tsuragamae masu-zushi” (1,300 yen including tax) that offers trout raised at the local Samegai Trout Farm.

DOWNSIZING STARTED 4 YEARS AGO

According to Izutsuya, its lunches were formerly sold at Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Shin-Osaka stations on the Tokaido Shinkansen as well as department stores in Tokyo. At one point, it made more than 1,000 bento a day.

But the company started downsizing in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It now sells only at outlets in Maibara Station in the bullet train and conventional railway line areas and at its head office near the west exit of the station.

In March last year, due to the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Tsuruga, the limited express train Shirasagi that had operated between Nagoya and Kanazawa stations by way of Maibara Station was shortened to run between Nagoya and Tsuruga stations.

During the Golden Week holiday and Bon vacation periods last year, the number of passengers who boarded the Shirasagi between Maibara and Tsuruga dropped sharply by 49 percent during Golden Week and by 40 percent during Bon compared to the same period in the previous year.

Many passengers seem to have avoided transferring at Tsuruga Station. 

CULTURE OF MAKING BY HAND VANISHING

On New Year’s Day this year, Izutsuya posted greetings from its president Ako Miyagawa on its website, titled “On our withdrawal from the ekiben business.”

She wrote, “Food is increasingly turning into industrial products and the culture of making by hand is vanishing. We decided that it is not a good idea to leave the ekiben that has inherited the DNA of Izutsuya in such an environment.

“Now that Maibara is no longer a transportation hub, we feel … that Izutsuya has sufficiently served its function as an operator in the station,” she continued.

The company will discontinue selling the lunches at the end of February and wind up its ekiben business by March 20. The area for eating ekiben, udon and soba noodles and curry rice set up in the company’s main office near the west exit of Maibara Station will also be closed at the end of February.

Although it will withdraw from the food business, Izutsuya will continue its real estate rental operation.

FANS SAY THEY WILL MISS THE EKIBEN

On social media, people have posted such comments as, “I know it is the way things go but I feel sad,” “The ekiben I bought by racing up the stairs while the Kodama bullet train was stopping tasted so good” and “Kohoku no ohanashi was Japan’s best ekiben.”

“We are so grateful that many people are telling us that they are sorry to see them go. I hope they will visit us since we will be in business as usual until the end of February,” said Hideyuki Hayashi, director of the company.

The sales of Izutsuya’s ekiben will end as soon as they are sold out at the outlets in Maibara Station and the main office.