I dont know if im the only one thinking that but vegetable / food quality (control) in japan seems to be abysmal. When buying stuff in any supermarket / veggy shop there is like a 25-30% chance that its already gone bad or wont make it to tomorrow.
Bought broccoli yesterday, today i wanted to cool it but noticed under the hood are a ton of moldy patches.
Potatoes are like 50/50 if half of them are already quite green when removing the dirt.
Bought gorgonzola multiple times in the past and half of them are already inedible.
I had bone pieces in ground meat and sausages in 4 different supermarkets (including costco) and some of them multiple times.
In germany ive never had such an issue with food… i can count the times i had something bad / moldy from there on one hand in 25 years but here, after 5, our whole family doesnt habe enough fingers to count them…
Anyone else has similar experiences?
Edit: seems like a few people noticed it as well and others not at all. I wonder if its city dependent. Im in sapporo, which likely means longer (and possibly incorrect) travel for lots of goods…
by TheAlmightyLootius
33 comments
Is it a problem with your fridge? The cheaper models can’t keep your produce.
No, haven’t noticed that.Â
If you didn’t know, the supermarket will refund anything that has gone bad
>Bought broccoli yesterday, today i wanted to cool it but noticed under the hood are a ton of moldy patches. Potatoes are like 50/50 if half of them are already quite green when removing the dirt.
For broccoli, I’ve noticed it’s only this time of year that has a problem. Maybe the heat and humidity? I’ve stopped buying broccoli during August/September unless I’m using it that same day and it works out well.
I don’t have much trouble with potatoes. Green potatoes are from being exposed to too much sunlight. Maybe they were picked a while ago and sat around getting sunlight? They could very well have been dug up many months ago and stored.
No, never had any of these issues. Not even once.
If you see something mouldy at the supermarket you really should alert a staff member, they’ll remove it from the shelf (as you would expect).
If it goes mouldy a day after putting it in the fridge at home, I’d be concerned your fridge might be broken. Maybe time for a new one.
I would say because of the crazy hot weather and huge number of typhoons this year that it’s become a problem. It wasn’t quite this bad before
I’ve only had such problems with vegetables at the reduced section, where it’s kind of accepted that the reduced price comes with this risk.
“When buying stuff in **any** supermarket / veggy shop there is like a **25-30%** chance”
Either you’re overexaggerating quite a lot, or the issue is somewhere between purchase and consumption.
I haven’t had that problem, no. I’m puzzled since you can pick your own produce in the store. I don’t eat meat so can’t speak to that aspect.
Personally, I find frozen vegetables to be very convenient and they don’t suffer with this issue. In fact, frozen vegetables are supposedly healthier since the nutrients are locked in whereas fresh produce continues to lose nutrients.
Where do you shop? I buy my groceries at branches of Yaoko, Aeon, and Coop and have never seen nor brought home anything that went moldy in a day. If you return the produce to the store, they will give you a refund.
I’ve never heard of anything like what you’re describing, but supermarkets tend to be worse for vegetables than going to a greengrocer
super market veggies do tend to get bad more quickly than I think they should, but not already rotten at the store
What ghetto supermarket you shopping at? This is the land of Individually Wrapped Grapes I cannot understand how you’re getting such low quality produce.
Yes OP I have noticed this a little bit.
But for me it’s one particular supermarket chain, Friendmart or Heiwado depending on what you call it. I have bought a number of vegetables that are bad, most often it’s the red onion. I also found an insect inside a pepper.
Strawberries, blueberries and some fruit at many supermarkets I’ve been to are already rife with mold.
That said 99% of everything is perfect it’s just some specific fruits and vegetables and often at some specific stores, not every store is like this except when strawberries and blueberries are involved.
Also how are you storing your fresh food? In this heat and humidity not surprised broccoli is moldy if you leave it sitting out for a day
Aside from bruised bananas being more common, I haven’t really noticed any huge difference I could ascribe to quality control. What does drive me crazy is the much shorter shelf-life on perishable items, which means I can’t get away with just the one grocery run per week like I used to back home. Smaller volumes on things like juice doesn’t help either.
I’m not sure whether they’re just being overzealous (although meat does seem to go bad around the Use By Date) or if there are some endemic logistical issues in the supply chain, but it’s annoying either way.
Yes, for some reason about 70% of the onions I buy in Tokyo have bits that have gone bad and need cutting off and discarding. And as for the imported Italian / Spanish garlic…..absolutely awful
Always look really carefully in the store. I have been caught out at Aeon on numerous occasions. I almost picket up a big pack of blueberries the other day with white mould clearly growing on them. Don’t assume that the vegetables are OK, check everyone. I never had the same problem at Keikyu.
Been here for two decades and have never bought vegirs with bad quality. Are you buying your vegies from a supa or from a cheap vegies stand that sells products that are abkut to go bad.
I have literally never once had this problem, and Japan in general is actually known for having quite good quality control for food. You might want to be picking out produce that isn’t quite ripe yet to give it a few extra days before you need to use it.
Buy veggies from the JA Minds cooperative or direct from the farmer if possible.
I am back to Europe (Spain) for holidays and have started noticed this as well, that the normal fruit/vegs here seem fresher than in Japan. If you go for the fancy ones in Japan it will always be good, but it’s like 3x the price. I’ve had multiple batches in Japan of strawberries like what you describe, that would either already be slightly moldy or go moldy within 24h (in the fridge). I suspect they might wash the fruit a lot more, which makes it prettier for presentation and safer for direct consumption but it’s a no-no here in Spain since it goes bad quicker?
But I suspect you might get a mixed bag of responses in this sub since in Japan is prob better than in most of the rest of the world (exc. EU).
Not really, everything seems fine where I am.
I just wish they wouldn’t use quite so many layers of plastic to wrap absolutely everything! A single biscuit does not need its own bag!
In 27 years I’ve never heard of this, well only as much as any other country, occassional mistakes being made. But no I’ve no idea why you’re experiencing this.
Fresh produce is generally good, but I deal with bad buys monthly. This week it was a bag of onions. I’ve been here most of my life and have only been dealing with bad produce in the last 10 years. It started with a box of rotten apples. I think “maybe” the old prideful farmers are dying off and the jobs of transporting and stocking the produce are no longer serious worker jobs. It’s all more convenient, cheaper and there’s a bigger selection of everything compared to decades ago, so it doesn’t bother me.Â
Green potatoes are definitely an issue, weirdly the worst store I’ve seen for this is Kinokuniya, where they try to sell bags that are obviously green at super premium prices. The inner Karen in me always wants to call over an attendant and explain to them that they are actually poisonous but I’ve never had the nerve, one day though…
The supermarket buys from local venders, which is mostly small to medium volume mom & pop shops.
In Europe they throw away enormous amounts of food to keep things clean and shiny in the supermarkets.
The suppliers are larger farms and supermarkets have a more efficient process.
How long it will keep may be the supply lines and that is local. Sashimi spoils in a day, so Japanese people tend to go to the supermarket a lot. If you use it today or tomorrow, you will probably be fine, but yes after a couple of days, things tend to go worse.
Have exactly the same issue and only buy from farmers markets now as all the big supermarkets seem to struggle with this
I’ve had these issues with strawberries. Double the price I’d pay in England and atrocious quality. I miss English strawberries.
Not with anything else though. I often get reduced products too and haven’t had any issues with those.
Long time ago I used to buy nice looking meat at a supermarket. Carried it home in summer, short distance, by the time I arrived home the colour had changed to green. They repacked the meat and put a new date on it. For veggies you have to buy according to season, it is not broccoli season at the moment as far as I know. So they have it in the supermarket and then it sometimes happens that the next day it is all yellow. So if you buy in “off-season” , freeze it at once. Other veggies sometimes get affected by the weather, like a couple of years ago you could not buy nice carrots.
When buying cheap grapes, I gotta shake up the container cause a lot of the time there’s moldy grapes hidden in there
Don’t buy plums from family mart. Last two packs I bought were filled with bugs inside.
Things like broccoli and onions aren’t actually in season right now. They’re much better in the cold months. Lots of veg here is best when it’s actually in season!
tbh for me I mostly run into this problem for produce that’s imported. Avocados, bananas, oranges.
The Japanese stuff I haven’t really had a problem with, but the price is usually about double. So it’s usually still cheaper to have the occasional problem with mold.
Not really a problem I’ve experienced.