Someone who likes vegetables and fruits. People who like to talk to people. People who like to make people happy.

The job of a fruit and vegetable store is to sell vegetables and fruits purchased at the market at their store. There are many different ways to purchase produce. Some stores use the old-fashioned method where the fruit and vegetable store staff themselves go to the market every morning to select their products, while others have the products ordered by the market's distributors delivered to their stores. Another important job is to arrange the vegetables and fruits to be sold that day. They think about how to arrange them in a way that will catch the customer's eye. They also have to make it easy for customers to buy, for example, by cutting large vegetables and packing small vegetables in packs. What sets fruit and vegetable stores apart from convenience stores and supermarkets is the direct contact with customers. Grocery stores provide customers with useful knowledge and advice, such as when vegetables are at their best and recommended ways to eat them. Some fruit and vegetable stores cook their own vegetables and fruits and distribute the recipes to their customers. In addition to selling to customers at their stores, they also take orders from restaurants and deliver to them. Delivering fresh fruits and vegetables to many customers and having them enjoy them is the joy of those who work in fruit and vegetable stores.

No specific qualifications are required to work in a fruit and vegetable store. If you want to become a self-supporting shopkeeper, it is a good idea to work part-time or as an employee at a fruit and vegetable store or market and gain hands-on experience working with fruits and vegetables. There, you will learn the basics of the fruit and vegetable business, such as how to purchase vegetables at the market and how much to sell them for to make a profit. After a few years of training, when you are confident that you can stand on your own feet, you can start your own store. Incidentally, if you want to sell processed foods such as pickles at your store, you must apply for a food sanitation "business permit" from the public health center. In addition, the Food Sanitation Law was revised in June 2021, and fruit and vegetable stores are also required to submit a "business notification" to the public health center.

Markets where fruit and vegetable stores purchase fruits and vegetables have a unique set of rules. At the market, first, "wholesalers" sell the goods collected from growers to "intermediate unloaders" or "buyers and sellers". Next, the intermediate unloaders sell to the "buyers". Buyers are retail fruit and vegetable stores that come to the market to purchase produce. Buyers and sellers can only do business with brokers and cannot buy from wholesalers. In order for retail fruit and vegetable stores to deal with wholesalers, they must be qualified as trading participants. However, there are strict requirements for obtaining this status, which vary from market to market. In addition, in order to trade in the market, one must join a "cooperative" that will take over the settlement of payments. To do so, one must pay a fee to join the association and invest in it. However, joining a cooperative also has the advantage of learning various things from other cooperative members and cooperating with them as friends.

As Japan's vegetable and fruit producing regions continue to age, the country relies heavily on imports from overseas. However, it is important for fruits and vegetables to be fresh, safe, and secure. In this respect, fruit and vegetable stores can easily meet the needs of customers who want to buy fresh and tasty food every day by selling locally grown vegetables. However, the number of traditional fruit and vegetable stores is dwindling each year as they are being replaced by large supermarkets. In addition, the distribution of fruits and vegetables has changed from the past, with producers and shipping organizations shipping directly to retailers instead of through markets, and producers using home delivery services to deliver fruits and vegetables to customers. Fruit and vegetable stores will also be able to connect producers and customers in new ways, such as purchasing directly from growers of rare fruits and vegetables and selling them nationwide via the Internet and home delivery services.

It depends on where the store is located. Some places that supply not only retail stores but also restaurants have annual sales of hundreds of millions of yen. The average annual income is 3.1 to 3.4 million yen. It depends on the location of the store. Some stores that supply many restaurants have annual sales of several hundred million yen.

They often use days when the market is closed and they cannot stock up as regular holidays for their stores. If there are no regular holidays, they take their days off in shifts.

Fruit and vegetable stores, markets, etc. Sometimes deliver goods to restaurants.

It's a chart that shows at a glance the main routes to getting a job at a fruit and vegetable store (grocery store)!