Japan Grocery Store Food Prices 2024

While local restaurant food isn’t terribly expensive in Japan, if you’re traveling long-term it’s still overall cheaper to make your own meals (especially if you want other stuff than beef rice bowls or ramen).

Here’s a compilation of what I bought at two local grocery stores just outside of Osaka, Japan, during my long stay this past spring (April-May 2024). I always personally find it helpful to have real prices to plan my budget with so I figured I’d share what I spent on my own groceries.

This is a sister post to my Japan convenience store food prices article. Between groceries and conbinis, you can get a lot of great food for very cheap!

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Video: Japan grocery store haul

Here’s a video showing a typical grocery store trip’s shopping:

Total price for this shopping trip was ¥3,816 or about $20 USD. I typically did two shopping trips a week, so I spent about $40-60 USD/week on groceries (depending on how many snacks I got).

The thing I noticed most about prices isn’t that they were high, necessarily, but the sizes are smaller than you might expect. Like, rice was surprisingly expensive for the size of bag, imo. Potatoes came in tiny bags, with maybe 5 small potatoes in it. It took a bit of getting used to.

Japan Grocery Store Food Prices

Staple Foods

Eggs (10 in a dozen): ¥228

Milk (500mL): ¥189

Butter (largest stick): ¥527

Bread (6 slices): ¥188

Rice (2kg): ¥928

Potatoes (small bag): ¥298 (these went up in price compared to last year)

Coffee (10 pack pour-over bags): ¥498

Meat

Pork/beef mix (minced) (about .5lb): ¥365

Chicken (breast): ¥288

Salmon fillet: ¥462

Other

Pasta (Western): ¥198

Pasta sauce (290g jar): ¥278

Cheese (shredded): ¥298

Udon noodles (pack of 3): ¥88

Tofu (regular sized block): ¥128

Natto (fermented soy beans) (pack of 3): ¥98

Japan Grocery Store Tips

Most stores put fresh foods on clearance after a certain time, usually 5pm-8pm. I’ve also found discounted vegetables and miscellaneous things like coffee and sauces on clearance.

You can find better fruit and veg at smaller stores/market stalls, for a better overall price. Fruit is also very seasonal, so you might not be able to find certain things like you would in the US. Bananas are generally the cheapest available fresh fruit year-round.

If you don’t think you can eat all the veg you get within a few days, just buy frozen. It tastes just as good and will last longer.