Vegetarian and vegan in Japan: what the word leaves open, the 2022 national standards, and why kitchens differ shop by shop

Tell a Japanese restaurant you are vegetarian and you have not yet told it what you do not eat. The Japan Tourism Agency’s guide for restaurants treats “vegetarian” as a family of diets, each excluding different things, and the national tourism organisation, JNTO, says that asking for a vegetarian meal may not be enough. This column sets out what the official sources say: who the visitors are, what the 2022 national standards define, and why two restaurants that both call a dish vegan may cook it very differently. It does not say what is safe for you to eat. Every source used here comes back to the same point: check with the shop.

Fish in dashi, the stock under most Japanese cooking, is covered on the dashi page, and Buddhist temple cooking, shōjin ryōri, has its own page. Neither is repeated here.

How many visitors, by two estimates

The tourism agency’s guide (April 2020 edition) estimates that 1.45 to 1.9 million vegetarian and similar visitors come to Japan a year, spending around ¥45–60 billion on food. It calls these figures an estimate, built from 2018 data and a market-research firm’s ratios of vegetarians by country, not a count.

The farm ministry’s material introducing its vegetarian standards gives a different figure: about 1.67 million vegetarians and vegans among roughly 31.19 million visitors in fiscal 2018. That is an estimate too. The two do not match, and this site does not choose between them.

Why “vegetarian” is not one thing

The agency’s guide sets out the diets in a table, with a tick or cross for red meat, white meat, seafood, dairy and egg:

• Vegan. Crosses everywhere, and also for other animal-derived things in general, including honey and gelatin, and insects.
• Lacto. Dairy allowed.
• Ovo. Egg allowed.
• Lacto-ovo. Dairy and egg allowed.
• Pescatarian. Seafood, dairy and egg allowed. The guide classes this as semi-vegetarian.
• Oriental. A type the guide says is common in Taiwan, which also avoids the five pungent plants: garlic, Chinese chives, rakkyō, green onion and asatsuki chives.

The guide says people follow these diets for many reasons, among them religion, animal welfare, the environment and health. That is the core of the problem for a visitor: the one word does not settle what is to be left out.

Hidden ingredients. JNTO says soups and sauces often contain meat or fish, which is why its advice is to name the stock as well as the meat and fish (the dashi page has the details). In the agency’s table, gelatin sits among the animal-derived things vegans avoid. I did not find lard mentioned in the official vegetarian material I read, and I have no official figure for how often animal fat or fish stock turns up in dishes sold as vegetarian.

What the visitors themselves said

In the agency’s survey of 228 vegetarian and similar travellers, about choosing restaurants on trips abroad:

• About one in five said they would only enter a vegetarian specialist restaurant.
• About half said they would only enter a restaurant that caters for them; for vegans the share was higher.
• About three in ten said they would not enter unless the ingredients were written on the menu.

On kitchens: about one in five would not enter unless the kitchen and utensils were kept separate, and about four in ten would not enter unless they could confirm there was no contamination, including during manufacture of the ingredients. Again the vegan figures were higher. The guide defines contamination as specified ingredients getting into a finished food unintentionally.

The 2022 national standards

On 6 September 2022 the farm ministry established two Japanese Agricultural Standards (JAS). The date is on the cover of each standard.

JAS 0025, for processed food. It covers processed food suitable for vegetarians (three types: those who eat egg and dairy, egg, or dairy) or for vegans.

• No animal-derived primary or secondary ingredients may be used.
• For the three vegetarian types, the standard lists egg, milk, honey or bee products (such as beeswax and propolis), and wool fat including lanolin as animal-derived items, set out type by type. For vegans there are no exceptions. Read that way, honey is out for vegans under the Japanese standard, and for vegetarians it depends on the type.
• The manufacturer must not have carried out animal testing on the food the standard covers.
• The ministry’s introduction adds the manufacturing side: keeping ingredients separate, cleaning, preventing unintended mixing, and labels such as “vegetarian” or “vegan” on the package.

What it does not do matters too. The standard says it does not set requirements based on human health, the global environment, social and economic considerations such as fair trade and animal welfare, or religious beliefs. It is a standard for ingredients and handling, not a ruling on any faith.

JAS 0026, for restaurants. It covers businesses that cook dishes to order from ingredients and additives meeting JAS 0025; a note says this includes, but is not limited to, restaurants, takeaway and delivery. The ministry’s introduction lists what it asks: ingredients that must not be used, preventing contamination, serving at least one suitable dish, displaying a mark on signs and the like, and giving information on the number of dishes, the basis for the ingredients and their proportions.

How it came about. The Japan Vegetarian Society, a certified non-profit, says on its own site that it proposed the draft to the ministry on 15 March 2022, that the standards council approved it on 29 June 2022, and that it was published on 6 September, and that the content follows ISO 23662. The ministry’s own cover gives 6 September as the date of establishment; 29 June was the council’s deliberation. The ministry’s magazine aff (October 2024) introduced the pair as JAS written with the growth in inbound tourism in mind.

Who certifies. Registered certification bodies. The Japan Vegetarian Society says it is one, registered by the ministry. I could not find whether there are others, what certification costs (the society’s page says to ask), or how many products or restaurants are certified. I read the 2022 versions only.

How restaurants are told to respond

The agency’s guide sets out a step-by-step approach:

• Step 0. Learn the basics.
• Step 1. Change or leave out ingredients in existing dishes.
• Step 2. Create new or dedicated dishes.
• Step 3. Separate the kitchen and cooking utensils.

It describes three ways of showing what is on offer: a certification mark (it names the Japan Vegetarian Society’s restaurant certification, Vegepro Japan, and a vegan and vegetarian mark as examples); the restaurant’s own symbol, such as a “V”; or text in the menu and explanation by staff.

Same word, different kitchens

The guide’s Tokyo case studies, based on interviews in February 2020, show how far practice varies:

• A tempura restaurant offers vegetarian dishes within its regular menu. Its kitchen is not separated.
• A restaurant where about half the menu is vegan cooks it in the same kitchen as the non-vegan dishes, and does not separate utensils.

These are two examples, not a survey. What they show is that “vegan” on a menu tells you about the ingredients the restaurant intends to use; how it is cooked is the restaurant’s own arrangement. If shared equipment matters to you, ask.

Finding places to eat

• The tourism agency’s guide lists the kinds of tools travellers use: map apps, review sites and vegetarian specialist sites. They are private services, and this site does not recommend any of them.
• JNTO links to outside resources, among them the Japan Vegetarian Society’s restaurant guide (in Japanese only) and JAPAN VegeMap, and says some restaurants display official stickers from vegetarian and vegan organisations. JNTO’s English page is not consistent about the society’s English name.
• Local government lists. I could not open any prefectural or city list of vegetarian or vegan restaurants as a primary source for this column.

JNTO’s practical advice: say exactly what you do not eat, including dashi and soup stock; carry a card in Japanese; and state your needs when you book.

What people get wrong

• “Vegetarian means the same thing everywhere.” The agency’s table splits it into several types. Vegans and lacto-, ovo- and lacto-ovo vegetarians all avoid seafood; the pescatarian eats it.
• “A vegan menu means a vegan kitchen.” In the agency’s Tokyo example it did not.
• “The JAS mark means it meets my religion’s rules.” JAS 0025 says it does not set requirements based on religious beliefs.
• “Japan has one figure for vegetarian visitors.” The agency and the farm ministry give different estimates.