this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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When I looked into this from what I could tell it's not really that fruits and vegetables are more expensive in Japan. For the most part some are a little more some are a little less so it just varies like any other country.
However there does seem to be a caveat to that. Average prices might be higher depending on how you look at it due to this odd luxury fruit industry Japan has. Stores where fruit is individually inspected to be perfect then polished and packaged specially and then charged huge amounts for.
I was gonna say ... If you only looked at the strawberries/apples/etc. that are individually packaged and traditionally given as gifts, then yes fruit would appear to be horrifically expensive
It really depends. A medium bell pepper is 198 yen now in my countryside area. The minimum hourly wage here is roughly 1000 yen of which maybe 20% goes to tax/insurance/pension. A stick of celary is that or more. On the other hand, cabbage is usually cheap.
Anything grown locally is cheap when it is in season. Transport costs, bad harvests, etc. can make anything expensive (due to weather and impacts of fuel costs, cabbages went to like 4x regular price last year and that's the main green).
Anything imported, niche, and/or off-season is going to demand a high premium. My second job (starting this year) is as a small-scale veg farmer in rural north Japan.