So one of the problems with living in Japan, is the chronic lack of choice when visiting supermarkets and whatnot.
In moderately sized supermarkets you might get a couple of choices for each of the staples, then beyond that you're unlikely to find exotics like lasagna, or cheeses beside cheddar.
(Obviously nowhere has marmite.)
But a leaflet came in the post the other day (apparently they do work) advertising a local wholesaler. Normally you'd need a business to be allowed entry, but those living within a certain radius are allowed in on Saturdays.
So we went down and had a look around. The prices were at least as good as the cheapest local supermarket, with some stuff like meats being quite a lot cheaper. Frozen food ended up being up to 30% cheaper, which is good.
But prices aside, this place was great for two reasons. You can buy 5kg bags of pasta. It cost about 7 quid, so we bought one of those.
The other thing was variety.
I always assumed there was never any variety in Japanese supermarkets because there was no local demand, but this place had at least 15 different types of cheese. If no one is buying it, why is it there? Clearly someone wants it.
It's still fairly expensive, but you can also buy these cheeses in 1kg+ bags. Amazing. That's at least a weekends worth. We didn't buy any of these this time around though, maybe next time.
There were breaded chicken breasts, pies, gravy's, waffles - all things you'd never see within 500 miles of a normal supermarket. If I can find a chicken kevin, oven chips, a whole chicken or a steak and ale pie, I'll be set for the next 10 years at least. I'm not a complicated person!
Some of the other highlights were 20kg bags of flour, kegs and legs of ham.
Unfortunately, no pictures allowed, but imagine willy wonkers factory with more pallets and forklifts.