| Item | Amount | Yen Price | U.S.Dollar Price | Comments |
| White Bread | 6-slice package | 156 | $1.41 | Regular Price for inexpensive bread. Expensive white bread (6 slices) was about 200 yen at the time of this writing. Bread is usually sold in 4 to 6 slice packages |
| Eggs | 10 | 168 | $1.45 | 10 eggs (Smallest size U.S.). Loss leader eggs are sometimes on sale for 100 yen |
| Whole Milk | 1 liter (.9qt) | 230 | $1.98 | Regular price, Meiji Brand |
| Meiji Sliced Cheese (Pkg of 10 slices) | 190g (6.7oz.) | 226 | $1.95 | Regular Price |
| Bell Peppers | Pkg of 3 | 78 | $.67 | On sale |
| Ground Round (Low fat hamburger) | 240gm (8.4 oz.) | 252 | $2.21 | Sale price at a regular supermarket |
| Bacon | 150g (5.3 oz) (10 slices) | 256 | $2.21 | Regular Price at a discount supermarket |
| Cucumbers, about 6" long, 1" diameter | 3 | 129 | $1.11 | On Sale |
| Tomatoes | 1 (about 3" diameter) | 100 | $.86 | Domestic, on sale |
| Irish Potatoes | 1 | 35 | $.30 | On sale. Small (about 3" long) |
| Tofu | 1 pack (330g, 11.6oz) | 156 | $1.35 | Regular Price, good-quality tofu. Tofu on sale is about 100 yen for a half-size pack. |
| Spanish Onions | 1 | 35 | $.30 | Medium size. |
| Fresh Chicken Breasts (2) | 450gm (15.75 oz) | 450 | $3.88 | Domestic, on sale. |
| Frozen Shrimp | 250gm (8.75oz) | 298 | $2.57 | Imported from Thailand, on sale. |
| Asahi Super Dry Beer | 6-pack | 1,050 | $9.05 | Can Beer, on sale, 350ml (11.8oz)/can |
| Rice from Japan | 10kg (22 lbs) | 2880 | $24.83 | On sale. |
| Head Cabbage | 1 | 105 | $.91 | On sale. Domestic. |
| Mayonnaise | 500gm | 208 | $1.79 | QP Brand. Regular Price. |
| Broccoli | 1 | 98 | $.85 | On sale. |
| Lettuce | 1 head | 156 | $1.34 | Domestic, on sale. |
| Carrots | 3 (about 6" long) | 158 | $1.36 | On Sale. Domestic. |
All items are domestic unless otherwise noted. The 5% National Sales Tax has been included in the product prices and U.S. dollar conversion done at 116JPY to 1 U.S. dollar. Brand names are listed solely for the sake of information. No endorsements are intended.
We will be adding to and making changes to this list from time to time so be sure to check back if you're interested. Prices were collected during the 4th and 5th week of July 2006.
Note: Vegetable prices are increasing due to losses in production due to cloudy weather and rains. Beef prices have stabilized, with many customers opting for beef imported from Australia. Effects on the lifting of the ban on US beef are expected to be negligible on customer's choices. Domestic surveys have shown that the majority of Japanese remain wary of US beef due to a lack of testing on a level that matches domestic beef. Rice prices are slightly lower than last year (2005).
Consumer confidence in foods imported from China is still low due to their past record of using illegal pesticides, shipping foods contaminated with bacteria and other irregularities. Recently, many supermarkets have increased the number of domestic products as well as those from countries having good reputations for food safety and the number of Chinese products being carried is far less than it was 3 years ago.
Effective April 1, 2004, a labeling law requiring retailers to display the tax included price went into effect throughout Japan. The average Japanese man or woman on the street sees the law as a ploy to disguise the current sales tax of 5% in order to prepare the public for dramatic increases in the tax in the future. The legislators who passed this law, which the majority of the general public views as unnecessary, failed to foresee one of the obvious consequences - a rise in prices in changing the labels. This provided a good opportunity for the retailers who needed to print new price labels to increase their prices. Thus, food prices as well as those for other daily necessities, have gone up since April.
Copyright 2006, A.E.L.S., Inc. (TanuTech) Billy Hammond