We should generate a fontconfig cache in the rootfs when the image is generated, to avoid it happening randomly on first boot.
postponed to 1.1
As discussed on a call, the cache is architecture-dependent so it has to be run on the target, or in a qemu. I'm not convinced that the cache generation is sufficiently slow to make the overhead of qemu worth it. I suspect consolidating the multiple cache generation operations into a single operation would be a better win. (that's entirely without data, just a hunch)
So as the fontconfig cache is architecture dependent, so either - build it on the target - build it on the host in qemu I'm not convinced that the overhead of qemu is worth the effort. We used to build the locales this way because low-memory devices didn't have enough memory to the work. I'll close this as WONTFIX, and open another bug about moving the font cache generation to a trigger.
Setting this to verified due to Ross latest comment