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The story
A thread appeared on 5ch’s “Hello! Project” board after a user who went to Seiyu (a Japanese supermarket chain) to buy ingredients for katsudon (pork cutlet rice bowl) spotted dirt-cheap tonkatsu in the deli section and posted that it made the whole shopping trip pointless. Replies ranged from “you get what you pay for” takes on the taste to tips like adding extra bonito dashi broth to make it tastier, while the discussion also broadened to cover how Seiyu’s private-label quality changed after its business integration with Trial, and the risk of oil oxidation when freezing fried food. Opinions were split on where to draw the line between cooking from scratch and relying on deli food.
What people said
Went to Seiyu to buy ingredients for katsudon, but these guys in the deli section (nicknamed "welfare," slang for cheap bargain-bin food) made the whole trip pointless.
and their private-label curry is cheap and tasty
Sucks there isn't one near me
With a little effort you can make it tasty on the cheap
I'll fry my own tonkatsu, but I wouldn't bother turning it into a full katsudon
The one near me turned into a Trial
You can't fry it first, lol
Even frozen, the oil keeps oxidizing, so it's not great for your health
but it's really just meat and rice that taste like what you paid
Frying then freezing is fine
You're going to simmer it anyway, so the breading goes soggy regardless
・things you should cook yourself
・things you should eat out for
・things you should snag as half-price deli food or bento
It's pretty clear-cut
Never thought of it that way
I'll look into it more and keep that in mind
You shouldn't reheat cold deli fried food either
Growing them in the yard is cheap
You can grow as much as you want from seeds
so it's better to start a home garden sooner rather than later
Frying's a hassle, so maybe I'll just buy the tonkatsu from the supermarket
Even the non-frozen stuff, pretty much all supermarket prepared deli food is like that
So Trial's quality went up a bit too, huh
I walked by it yesterday — wish I'd stopped in
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
As part of its business integration with Trial Holdings, Seiyu has been converting the signage of some stores to Trial and swapping out its private-label products. The comments in the thread mentioning that a store “changed to Trial” or referencing “Trial’s private-label products that got absorbed” point to the effects of this integration. Opinions in the thread were divided over oil oxidation when freezing fried food and whether reheating deli food is advisable, but the actual effects vary depending on storage conditions and reheating methods, so it’s not accurate to simply say it’s “bad for your health.” Where each household draws the line between price, effort, and nutrition is largely a matter of personal judgment.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Hello! Project”) thread “X user: “Went to Seiyu to buy katsudon ingredients but the deli section ruined the whole point”.”
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