Photo/Illutration Children receive freshly prepared meals at a children’s cafeteria in Osaka. (Toshiyuki Hayashi)

The number of children’s cafeterias serving food to children in need reached 9,131 this fiscal year, 1,768 more than the last fiscal year, the latest survey found.

It is the largest increase since the survey began in 2018, according to Musubie, a nonprofit organization that supports children’s cafeterias, called “kodomo shokudo.”

Musubie released the results of its survey on Dec. 14.

“The children’s cafeterias are getting closer and closer to becoming a given social infrastructure for multi-generational interactions,” said Makoto Yuasa, a project professor at the University of Tokyo, who heads the organization.

“I hope to build a new form of public-private collaboration and partnership backed by the government,” Yuasa added.

All prefectures saw an increase, with the total number of children’s cafeterias being almost equal to the number of public junior high schools in Japan, which is about 9,300.

Tokyo topped the list with more than 1,000 locations, an increase of 170.

An increasing number of companies are opening such cafeterias, according to the survey. 

The total number of annual users nationwide was 15.84 million, of which 10.91 million were children.

The driving force of the increase is a growing awareness of the need to restore community ties after COVID-19 was downgraded to a category 5, the same as the seasonal flu. 

The organization’s goal is to “create a situation where all children have access to a children’s cafeteria.”

The percentage of elementary school districts with at least one children's cafeteria of all 19,000 or so school districts exceeded 30 percent for the first time, up about 5 percent from the previous year.

By prefecture, Okinawa, which is working to address childhood poverty, had the highest percentage at about 57 percent, followed by Tottori with about 55 percent, and Tokyo with about 51 percent.

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