When Staples Vanished: Supermarket Panic-Buying during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This short article offers a vignette of experiences with food and COVID-19 in Zushi City, Japan early in the pandemic to shed light on the vulnerabilities of the country’s food system. It illustrates how national policies to control the spread of infection affected consumer behavior on the ground and raises larger questions about the sustainability and resilience of food systems that are dependent on global supply chains and importations.