Bento boxes Australia, where from?

Hi there, we are located in Australia and looking at purchasing the traditional type of bento box, not the disposable type or plastic lunch box types, anyone have any suggestions?

Looking online most of the places we find sell the plastic lunch box type and most that do have the traditional type are in USA or Japan.

Feedback greatly appreciated.

You could use a proxy buying service like buyee to get some off yahoo auctions.

Call around larger Asian supermarkets. Basically I think that anywhere that sells Japanese style chopsticks, Japanese cookware, sushi/onigiri presses, etc. has a fair chance to stock them. Australia has a decent number of Japanese people and I've seen them on sale in the UK, so you should be able to find something if you look hard enough.

Even if you found a source in Japan for purchase, you would have trouble getting it posted/shipped to Australia. JPpost have suspended parcel/package services for almost a year now.

DHL ships daily to Australia. Not an issue to have something shipped from Japan to Australia. And in the past almost all retailer have switched to DHL for this reason.

Most capital cities have a Japanese supermarket. I remember seeing quite a few in Melbourne a few weeks ago. Note that many of the Bento boxes are a thick decorative plastic which cannot be heated (I think)....

If you are finding for bento boxes in Australia, I think it is best to find them in Asian grocery stores. I am sure that they have disposable or reusable bento boxes. if you cannot find one. It is better to buy some online maybe on eBay or Amazon. I think it is much cheaper compared to the ones you can buy in physical stores. Just make sure that it is legit and not too flimsy. This is to avoid spilling and to make sure that the food won't move around that much. If possible you can also have it order directly from Japanese stores. However, it might cost more because of the shipping fee.

OP,
You need to explain what do you mean by traditional type of bento box, ....
Picture of what you have in mind will help people point you to correct direction.
https://web-japan.org/kidsweb/virtual/bento/bento04.html

Try these..
https://www.katachiware.com.au/bento-boxes/
https://www.fishpond.com.au/c/Kitchen/q/Japanese+Wooden+Bento+Box
https://www.etsy.com/au/market/japanese_bento_box

Thank you for your help, we did try the grocery stores but none had any, we ended up getting the bamboo bento boxes from Katachiware, https://www.katachiware.com.au/bento-boxes/ they had a free delivery option and exactly hat I was looking for.

Now the fun begins, lots of Japanese bento preparation and cooking and to do.

I also got a book from eBay, Bento Cookbook: 30 Tasty Bento Recipe Ideas, waiting for it to be delivered.

Can anyone suggest some traditional Japanese Bento recipes to try? When you Google search Bento Recipes most are for kids he plastic lunchboxes with sandwiches etc.