I recently read a travel article somewhere that talked about the phenomena of visiting supermarkets as part of your holiday abroad, not just as a necessity for buying sustenance, but for the pleasure of experiencing how other countries go about this most basic of things.

This isn’t news to me : I’ve always loved going to supermarkets abroad and sampling the local produce : fond memories of gazing in wonder at the cheese selection in a South Tyrolean village, or even the quality of goods available in Marks & Spencer’s on return trips to the UK.

This article then went on talk about, as an example, the joy Japan’s convenience stores were giving to visitors. It didn’t say anything about the regular supermarkets of that Far Eastern nation.

But I’m going to make it explicit. This is the TL;DR of this post : in my opinion, yes, the convenience stores in Japan are amazing, and I love them - but in stark contrast, the supermarkets are largely shite.

CONVENIENCE STORES

Japan’s convenience stores come in three main flavours : 7-11, Family Mart and Lawson and they all offer a mind-boggingly large range of products and services in a fairly compact shop. They are absolutely everywhere in Japan, and unless you’re really out in the sticks you’re never very far from one. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week including national holidays, this is one time when Japan’s occasionally stultifying uniformity and genericism is a positive boon : you know exactly what you’re getting, no matter which branch you’re visiting, wherever you are in the country, whatever the time of day or night.

Generally clean and well-maintained, you can buy rice-balls, cakes, snacks, fried chicken, bananas, ready-made spaghettis and other meals that they’ll shove in the microwave for you, all manner of beverages including alcohol and freshly ground coffee. Need some basic clothing? No problem, t-shirts, pants, scraves, beanies are all there. Condoms, tampons, deodorant, tissues, UV lipgloss - yep. Need a charger for your iPhone because you forgot to bring yours? It’s there. Need to take out some cash from your bank or from your credit card? There’s an ATM inside. Need to print or send some documents? Just stick your USB into their copier or use your phone to send the docs. Magazines, newspapers? Yes. Need to actually sit down and eat what you’ve just bought? Quite a few stores have a simple line of chairs and a desk where you can do just this. Want to pay your electricty bill or local tax? You can do it in a ‘conveni.’ They really are great. I’ve lived in Japan for ages, but I still enjoy going to convenience stores and appreciate their utility. Other countries have something similar, but I’ve never seen anything that comes close in sheer range of services or quality of the those in Japan.

OK, you pay somewhat over the odds in convenience stores - products are more expensive than supermarkets and online, but that’s the trade-off. There is also a darker side to them that probably very few people think about : waste. Convenience stores rarely if ever discount stuff that is nearing its sell-by date, and never donate it - it’s ruthlessy binned even before the expiry date. Staff aren’t even allowed to have it.

SUPERMARKETS

*“The grey antiseptic whiff of East Germany, c.1987”*

OK, so Japanese convenience stores are a marvel and I love them, and it’s no wonder foreign tourists find them both interesting and useful. But what of the regular supermarkets? I’ve been to supermarkets all over Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia, and I have to say that Japanese ones are the worst. They’re awful. It’s like East Germany in the 1980s or Britian in the 70s. Well, I’m exaggerating somewhat for effect, but they aren’t good. Japanese supermarkets are characterised by a bland ugliness, a poor selection of goods in almost every field, and a proliferation of plastic-wrapped chemical-laden crap masquerading as food.

I’m sure in the swisher parts of Tokyo you can find places that more resemble the best of what Europe has to offer, but where I live, this isn’t the case, although there is a gradation among establishments. At the top end are the big places in major shopping malls or central locations where you might actually find ‘exotic’ goods like a freshly-baked ‘real’ pizza (yes, that’s exotic in these parts). Then there’s the run-of-the-mill chains like Yours and Fresta : you’ll find all the basic stuff, but there won’t be much variety. Then there’s the bottom end. Here in Hiroshima, that would be RAMU and few other similar places which are like grey cubes full of awful products of dubious provenance stacked up on the floor, and they only take cash. This last type really remind me of the Eastern Bloc of the 80s.

*“You can have any flavour you want, as long as it’s strawberry or blueberry.”*

So what exactly is my problem with Japanese supermarkets? Isn’t it just a cultural difference that affects the type of products on offer? To an extent, yes, but not really. Japan is an island nation which loves its seafood, so you’d think their supermarkets would have great arrays of fish on offer, but no. The seafood departments of supermarkets here are no better than those in Europe, and possibly a bit worse in some cases.

How about fruit and veg? Fairly poor quality and low on variety. Pales in comparison to what’s on offer in the West. Big fat shiny green and red peppers? Nope, just scrawny little green ones. Large juicy cucumbers? No, just tiny wiry ones. Everything is smaller and crappier looking. Melon, strawberries and grapes are the ‘exotic’ pricey fruit on offer aside from the bananas (small, of course), pineapple, oranges and tangerines. The tangerines are pretty good, I have to admit. Give Japan a point for that. Apples - no red ones. Forget anything like guava, starfruit, lychee, etc - it doesn’t exist in these parts. You’re a fan of nectarines? Never heard of them, squire.

*Japanese people somehow think this is ‘cheese’… thanks, USA!*

When it comes to dairy and wheat-based products, you’d expect it to be worse given the Western origin of these food stuffs - and it is. For the latter, Japan took the American route - horrible tasteless white sliced bread encased in plastic being the norm. There are sometimes things labelled as ‘French bread’, but aside from the shape, there is no resemblance to a baguette. French people will weep. Want some wholesome whole grain bread in a loaf so you can cut it as you wish? Doesn’t exist. It will be sliced, it will be encased in plastic. I must note, however, that here in Hiroshima we do have Takaki Bakery, who put effort into making some decent and healthy products. They have an excellent rye bread, which although sliced and covered in plastic, has actual grains in it and is pretty good.

Cheese - the American model again - some orangey-yellow greasy slices of goo wrapped in plastic is the norm. You won’t find a cheese counter in Japan where you can order 100g of your favourite cut from a large organic real cheese. Doesn’t exist here. Some supermarkets might have a few camenberts, parmesan and even gorgonzola if you look carefully - all very pricey and covered in plastic. Mozzarella, the type you find in a liquid-filled bag that makes a nice carpaccio with tomato slices, is miraculously present in many supermarkets, thank Dog, so again I give Japan a point for that.

*Oh, wait - I’ve found more yogurt flavours! Plain, plain and plain!*

Yogurt - it’s very strange that while this creamy dairy product is ubiquitous and well-loved in Japan, it only comes in two flavours apart from plain. Strawberry and Blueberry, that’s it. Every manufacturer is the same. Occasionally there will be a short-lived ‘mixed berries’ or ‘peach’ kinda thing on offer, but they never stay around long. Coconut flavour? Hazelenut? Raspberry? Not a chance. It’s funny, but you can’t even get vanilla. By the way, while the Japanese have an on-going love affair with strawberries (yogurt, cake, drinks, even sandwiches), they apparently hate the raspberry. You just can’t find it here.

Now of course if you’re looking for rice, soy sauce, mizo paste and all of the other things that go into Japanese cuisine, then you you’ll be fine, and there are seperate stores which specialise in imported Western food stuffs like Kaldi and Jupiter, but for me as the designated cook in our household, it’s still very frustrating. You can delete all those cooking apps on your iPhone, because virtually every recipe they show you will have at least two ingredients you can’t get here.

CONCLUSION

So there we have it. Japanese conveniences are a marvel of usefulness and I love them. Good food and…extremely convenient! I think I drop in on one four or five times a week, and every Monday I sit down to a quick lunch of egg and tuna sandwiches with a sugarless latte at a 7-11 between jobs.

Why is it, then, that in contrast Japanese supermarkets are so awful? As a tourist you might not notice immediately - you may be momentarily bamboozled by the unfamilar - but once you start to actually use them, then you’ll find out pretty quick. I don’t go to the two nearest supermarkets to my house because they are so crap. I would rather ride the train three stops to a more decent place. And still there’s not a raspberry yogurt in sight!

JAPAN : CONVENIENCE STORES vs SUPERMARKETS

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