Rice around the clock

In Japan, rice is the most important staple food, it is part of breakfast, lunch and dinner - although its consumption is declining due to the westernization of the Japanese's eating habits, McDonald's, Starbucks.... But still an average family consumes several dozens kilos of rice - per month. The photo's showing a vending machine where you can buy rice in 5 or 10 kg sacks, even during night. So you will be sure of never running out of it.
The red kanji sign (pronounced o-kome) is the character for uncooked rice. Cooked rice is called "gohan", which also means "meal".