Ginza Shikawa's ¥10,000 two-loaf bread box marks Seibu Ikebukuro's depachika anniversary

Ginza Shikawa is selling a limited-run, ¥10,000 two-loaf bread box for the whole of September, according to a release the bakery posted September 1 on PR TIMES. Named "Shigoku" — a word the company renders roughly as "ultimate" — the set pairs a chestnut loaf made with Kumamoto-grown yamae chestnuts, which the release notes have a history of being presented to the Imperial Household, with a hand-woven loaf enriched with fermented butter.

The company has capped the run at 100 boxes, sold exclusively at the B1F Sweets & Gift floor of Seibu Ikebukuro's main store, to mark the first anniversary of that floor's renovation.

A ¥10,000 loaf of bread only makes sense inside a depachika (the department-store basement food hall), where the price signals craft and scarcity as much as the ingredients do. Ginza Shikawa has built its business on premium "nama-shoku pan" (fresh-style bread meant to be eaten plain), and pairing two flagship loaves under one high price, one location and a hard 100-unit cap turns a routine seasonal item into an anniversary event for a floor that needs a reason to draw shoppers back.

The tactic also does double duty for Seibu Ikebukuro: a single splashy, capped-quantity product gives the newly renovated floor something to point to a year on, at minimal cost to the department store itself.