The Least Useful Guide to Fukuoka

Marukyo

This is a supermarket with a distinctive character.

As I said before in this blog (here), Marukyo has the style— putting priority on selling everything at lowest possible price, rather than following market trends (in other words, “Marketing? Customer opinion? What is that?” attitude).  When my family found Marukyo probably in the early 70s,  it looked very original, or I should say wild, in many ways: First of all, there used to be piles of cardboard boxes, instead of plastic bags, in front of the tills; some packs of meat labelled only as “dog” (We, mainly my father and me, used to argued about whether the “dog” meant “meat for your dog” or “dog meat”); and as long as I know, Marukyo is the first supermarket in Fukuoka that introduced “Western style” tills, but in its original way. I mean, your put your shoppings on a conveyor belt and you are supposed to be at the end of the belt to put your shopping into your bag, OK? The system you know has only one outlet, but Marukyo’s had three outlets. Let me illustrate the difference.

Do you know what I mean?  In this way, you will be under pressure to sack everything away as quick as possible, because the cashier can deal with customers three times quicker than in the one-outlet style. If you shop a lot, or you are a slow sacker, your lane can overflow or you will hear big tuts from the waiting queue (remember, in this country of the short-tempers, making other people waiting at till is antisocial and unforgivable).

But now you don’t have to worry about shopping here. Recently they have been much “milder” and shopper-friendly. They will give you plastic bags (upon request), and the conveyer-belt tills have gradually been replaced with common Japanese style:  tables for sacking are available.  you will bring your shopping to the table and can enjoy sacking as long as you like.  And meats are more precisely labelled. You won't get frightened at the “dog” meat.

Never changed is the special offer system. Actually, if you wish to get a good value for money at Marukyo, you must be a good advertisement reader because their special offers change day by day and greatly. In fact, it is not overstating that my shopping plan is ruled by what is on offer on which day at Marukyo

Today I Bought:

a Tomato ketchup at JPY138,

a 400g tub of yoghurt at JPY108,

and three sachets of cup soup at JPY97

As you see, they are good at cupboard staples.

My Verdict:

A good place to get food to stockpile, but there may be someone’s tears behind the low price.