Aburi Market is a one-stop shop for affordable Japanese cuisine

While many restaurants quickly pivoted to offer grocery delivery during the pandemic to survive until businesses could reopen and diners could return, one Vancouver-based company saw it as an opportunity to diversify its portfolio.

Aburi Restaurants Canada, which counts high-end, award-winning restaurants Miku and Minami among its operations, formally ventured into the grocery space in June 2022 with Aburi Market, and a mission to offer customers an elevated yet affordable shopping experience rooted in Japanese culture. 

“What we wanted to do [with Aburi Market] was to provide convenience and quality products at a reasonable price and, because of the restaurant group, we already had trust from the customers,” says Aburi founder and CEO Seigo Nakamura. 

Enter Aburi Market – a 4,000- sq.-ft. store in West Vancouver that specializes in restaurant-quality food including prepared foods, frozen meal kits, fresh sushi, made-to-order bowls, snacks, sliced-to-order wagyu beef and desserts, many of which are exclusive to the retailer and imported from Japan. (The store also sells home goods and apparel.)

There is a sushi station, where shoppers can watch chefs from Aburi restaurants prepare various creations that are packaged and sold from the store’s grab-and-go section, and a make-your-own ramen station with different broths, noodles and toppings to choose from.

[Read more: “As consumers embrace global foods, grocers look to diversify their offerings”]

In-store events give customers the opportunity to sample products at different food stations and watch educational videos detailing how to make some of the items being featured. In December, for example, the market hosted what it called the “Iwate Fair” featuring A5 (highest grade) wagyu, sweet apples and rice.

And during a fair held in February, shoppers could sample soups and rice bowls made using products from the Hokkaido region of Japan, and watch live hand roll demonstrations. Recipes were made available to shoppers who wanted to try to recreate the featured dishes at home. 

Nakamura says the grocer continues to “upgrade” its product selection based not only on what’s in season and the customers’ needs, but also to reflect their increasing knowledge of Japanese fare.

Because [our customers] are getting knowledgeable, what they want will shift and then we do have our large supply chain, so we have the capacity to change the product the way the locals want,” he says. 

Within the year, Nakamura hopes Aburi Market will be serving a new set of locals. Though it’s still early days and Nakamura remained mum on details – only to say it’s a “big project” – he did confirm the company was eyeing expansion into Toronto. 

Not stopping with Aburi Market, the company is also opening food stores specializing in specific aspects of Japanese food and culture, including a wagyu curry shop called WA! Curry that celebrated its grand opening in Vancouver on March 15, and a Japanese-style bagel shop that is slated to open in the city later this year.

This article was first featured in Canadian Grocer’s March/April 2023 issue.