www.naturalhouse.co.jp
Natural House is a health food supermarket chain that stocks groceries, fruit and veg, natural medicines, beauty products and environmentally aware cleaning products. They have a good range of vegan and organic foods (including vegan margarine) and all of their produce is certified or uncertified organic or low chemical. Some things can be a little pricey but if you have a good look around you can work out pretty easily which things to buy and which things to get somewhere else.
Some stores differ in size and I think I lucked out with Kobe because it is huge. Other stores may be smaller so may not stock fruit and veg or other things.
They have stores in Aomori, Chiba, Ehime, Kanagawa, Kobe, Kochi, Kyoto, Osaka, Saitama, Shizuoka and Tokyo. Click here to see the list of store locations - in Japanese unfortunately.
Warabe Mura
www.warabe.co.jp/english.html
Warabe Mura is an organic and macrobiotic wholefoods mail order company based in Gifu Prefecture. They sell an excellent range of almost entirely locally produced certified and uncertified organic vegan foods as well as environmentally aware household products and a good selection of books. This is a good place to stock up on pulses and legumes, soy milk with a taste (Japanese soy milk is awful), and whatever else interests you. The catalogue is quite extensive and they also offer an organic vegetable box which can be delivered on a one-off or weekly basis. Before using this service you will need to visit their website and request that a catalogue be sent to you.
Tengu Foods
www.alishan-organic-center.com
Tengu is another mail order company and you can place orders using their online catalogue or have a catalogue sent to you. They have an excellent range of vegan and organic foods, nutritional supplements, body products, frozen foods and monthly specials. They also have a cafe, shop and event space in Saitama Prefecture.