Inflation aside, butter and cream have always been expensive here but with inflation plus 10% sales tax, they’re almost out of reach. I have a YouTube cooking channel, so I actually need both. I’ve been looking for a way to purchase them for less but what I’ve found on Amazon and Rakuten, with shipping, cream is still around 2000 yen per liter and butter between 1100 – 1500 yen per 450g.
Does anyone know how/where to get it for less?
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Have you checked Costco?
I buy it in my home country. It’s cheaper and better. Freeze it when I arrive.
Butter is a little cheaper at Gyomu Super, not sure about cream. You probably need to be looking at somewhere that is selling for catering needs in bulk.
I get heavy cream from the nearest hanamasa. 900ml for about 600yen.
Cheapest (real) butter I find is the newish 200g box at my basket for about 350yen. Hanamasa and my basket are the cheapest places overall i think.
If you like cooking , search for hanamasa. They are like a smaller, Japanese version of costco.
I only buy butter, but it cost about 400 yen for 200g, so it should cost under 900yen for 450g. Donki used to carry it for under 400yen before, but with inflation everything is going up.
I’ve always wondered if it has a connection with margarine not really being a thing here so there isn’t any competition. I’m longing for the day Japan does a trade deal for ‘I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter’.
Butter is a kind of luxury good in Japan. It was always expensive. Cream and butter both come from dairy industry which is limited here.
Your best bet is to buy in bulk.
Use tax redirection (if you pay Japanese taxes) – we use it for butter and meat.
Supply and demand, I guess. Cream and butter are not so commonly used in Japanese cuisine. Depending where you live, maybe you can find a dairy farmer closeby?
Even butter at my local supermarket is cheaper than that! 350yen before tax for 200g, salted. Unsalted 400yen. Check your local stores, don’t rely on online shipping because on some daily items it might be ‘free shipping’ but the item price itself has been inflated. Shipping chilled goods costs extra, they have to recoup that somehow.
The reason butter is expensive in Japan is because dairy is a protected industry and imported (cheaper) milk is not allowed by the government. On top of that, the number of dairy farmers have been in steady decline since the late 2000’s and there’s not enough production facilities for consumer-grade butter. The government also controls importation of butter and anyone wanting to buy and sell cheaper butter cannot do so without going through a goverment agency, unlike cheese.
The reason cream is expensive is on top of the high cost of raw ingredients caused by industry protection, most milk in Japan is sold and consumed whole and there’s very little left for low/non-fat where cream production comes from. Whereas in the USA for example, it’s the opposite and whole milk doesn’t sell as well. There’s more demand for low-fat milk so there’s a lot left over for making cream, making it cheaper.
As for buying butter cheaper, I buy bricks of it when I travel overseas and freeze them when back in Japan. You can buy Echire and Kerrygold for a few euros or dollars and they taste so much better than than Japanese butter, even the ones made in Hokkaido. Haven’t found a way to bring back cheaper cream safely, although I don’t use it often so it’s not a big deal for me.
Some JP told me Japan doesn’t import cheaper milk products to not sabotage the domestic market (but yet not Choose to subsidize them?)
So the priorities are Milk – butter – cream