In June this year, I managed to get back to the UK to visit my family, after a very long 3 year wait. With border restrictions and Covid-related rules being relaxed by the Japanese government in Spring, myself and many fellow expats from countries all over the world finally got the chance to travel home to see loved ones. The price of flights has been ridiculous and the need to get a PCR test before re-entry to Japan is a little inconvenient, but regardless of these, a huge wave of foreigners is heading back to their home countries this summer. And I am sure each has a list of special things to buy which they cannot usually get in Japan. Food undoubtedly features heavily on everyone’s lists.

In 2019, online grocery delivery company British Corner Shop commissioned a survey of almost 1000 British expats and found more than two thirds named British food as the thing they miss most from home, outside of family and friends. You can see the full list of food items at the end of this article, but let’s take a look at the top 10. Number one on the list is not surprisingly tea, presumably classic British tea brands. Tea still remains the UK’s favourite drink with around 165 million cups being drunk every day. Coffee is on the rise in popularity, but brewing a cup of tea still prevails. And these are the popular brands:

• Yorkshire Tea
• Twinings Tea
• PG Tips
• Clipper
• Tetley Tea

All of these brands are available in Japan, at shops like Seijo Ishi, Don Quixote, Kaldi and others. Amazon of course has them all!

Number 2 on the list is chocolate, which inevitably has to mean Cadbury’s milk chocolate, in all it’s glorious forms! There are simply too many to mention, so as a reminder to those that have lived in the UK or for those for the first time, here is a list of all their chocolate products: https://www.cadbury.co.uk/products

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth nowadays, but these are my top 3, all classics which I had to eat during my trip in June:

• Crunchie – honey comb covered in milk chocolate
• Curly Wurly – chewy and curly caramel covered in milk chocolate
• Flake – a very crumbly chocolate bar. Cadbury say that the manufacturing process is so unique, no other company has managed to copy it. I have to agree.

In Japan we can occasionally find some Cadbury chocolate but it is a rarity and the choice is very limited.

Coming in at Number 3 is the ever-controversial salty yeast spread Marmite. Love it or hate it, Marmite is the definition of a crowd divider. Marmite has even become an expression in itself. The Macmillan dictionary explains the meaning well. “If something is described as marmite, then there’s no way you can be indifferent about it or express minor shades of like or dislike. No, if it’s marmite, then its very nature forces you to firmly sit in either the ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ camp.” Personally I am in the love it camp. Recently I found a recipe for making something similar at home. The main ingredient was sour dough bread, so I decided to make a sour dough starter, bake some sour dough and try to make the yeasty spread. It totally failed. But now I bake sour dough once a week at home, which I love, so the initial failure had a silver lining.

Marmite is easy to buy in Tokyo with Don Quixote now stocking it. And Amazon of course.

Next on the list is gravy, which I assume means gravy granules, the most famous of which is by far Bisto. Just add water and you have gravy for your Sunday roast or bangers and mash. I have not personally been a Bisto user but I can appreciate its convenience. I always thought the classic Bisto with the red packaging was beef but was surprised to read on the product website that it is actually suitable for vegetarians. I never knew. Bisto or other instant gravies are not readily available in Japan as far as I know.

Next on the list at Number 5 is biscuits. This one I totally get! We simply have the best range of naughty biscuit treats in the world. Digestives, Chocolate Digestives, Hobnobs, Chocolate Hobnobs, shortbread, Jaffa Cakes, Jammie Dodgers, Bourbons, Ginger Nuts, Penguin……I could keep writing for pages. My favourite has to be the McVitie’s Chocolate Hobnob, a biscuit filled with oats, which kind of feels healthy. They are closely followed by the Penguin, an absolute classic. As far as I know, there are some McVities Digestive biscuits available here in Japan but not much else. Please let me know if this is not accurate!

Number 6 is the British crisp, or potato chip. The range and choice of flavours is enormous, with a flavour for every taste. But despite this choice, year on year the top five flavours remain the same, as does the most popular brand, Walkers. The top five are invariably Cheese & Onion, Ready Salted, Salt & Vinegar, Prawn Cocktail, and Chicken. My favourite naughty snack is made from corn and has the most quintessential British flavour, pickled onion! The Pickled Onion Monster Munch, puffed corn in the shape of a monster’s paw with a sharp vinegar flavour. Childhood memories come flooding back when I open a pack of these.

When I am back in the UK I absolutely love going to the supermarket. In daily life shopping can be a chore, but when you are on holiday it can be a fun activity, slowly wandering the aisles, checking out the new products, marveling at how cheap some items are compared with Japan ie cheese! In June I took some photos at my Mum’s local Waitrose. Here is a very small part of the crisps section:

Next on the list is Baked Beans, almost certainly Heinz Baked Beans. As the advertising slogan goes, “Beanz Meanz Heinz”, in other words, when talking about baked beans, there is only one brand, Heinz. Such a simple but effective marketing slogan that was created by a young advertising executive, Maurice Drake, in a London pub in 1967. And it has survived until today.

Number 8 on the list is bacon. I am guessing that some of the Brits polled in the survey were living in countries where pork products are not available due to religious restrictions. For us living in Japan, it probably should read “really good bacon”. Sure, you can go to the basement food hall at one of the top department stores and find some decent bacon, but it comes at a hefty price. At your local supermarket, the bacon is pretty cheap but the flavour and texture is not at the level of British bacon. What makes a slice of British bacon, or “rasher”, different from say American or Canadian bacon is the cut of pork we use. In America they use the belly. In Canada it is the loin. The British rasher is a combination of both loin and belly in one cut. Hallelujah, bacon heaven is achieved!

Coming in at Number is 9 is the big one, pies! Luckily for us in Japan we have Swan & Lion so I don’t think I need to write anymore.

Rounding out the top 10 of food Brits miss most is breakfast cereal. I am sure some kind of breakfast cereal is available in every country, whether it be corn flakes or muesli, but I was actually a bit shocked to see the size of the breakfast cereal section in Waitrose on my recent trip. It took three shots to get them all in. There’s something there for everyone! My favourite, Shreddies. They’re in the photos somewhere, where are the Shreddies?????

I will give the full list of 30 foods we miss below. It might be a useful helper when writing your shopping list for your next trip to the UK. To be honest, living in Japan is not so bad when it comes to finding our favourite things. Many are available here and let’s face it, if everything was available, going home would not be the same.

TOP 30 – FOOD AND DRINKS BRITISH EXPATS MISS:

1. Tea

2. Chocolate

3. Marmite

4. Gravy

5. Biscuits

6. Crisps

7. Beans

8. Bacon

9. Pies

10. Cereal

11. Pickle

12. Sausages

13. Crumpets

14. Squash

15. Cheese

16. Bread

17. Bovril

18. Mustard

19. Cake

20. Salad Cream

21. Sweets

22. Soup

23. Marmalade

24. Irn Bru

25. Beer

26. Custard

27. Malt Vinegar

28. Scones

29. Fish & Chips

30. Twiglets