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UK supermarkets are crap, and have got noticeably crapper in recent years. At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg, an
by fredley 4y ago
UK supermarkets are crap, and have got noticeably crapper in recent years. At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg, and a maeger selection of almost entirely prepackaged meat and fish. I have noticed many things are routinely out of stock and it can be a lottery shopping for a specific recipe.
I recently visited Portugal, and in a small city supermarket there was a bakery, meat and a fish counters and a wide variety of produce, all labelled clearly by variety name. It put my local large supermarket to shame. The prices were cheaper too.
I find this every time I shop on the continent. Are our standards that much lower? Is it just Brexit? I yearn for a European supermarket experience in the UK.
- Doctor_Fegg 4y agoBooths (regional chain in the northwest) are outstanding; Waitrose are obviously good too. Our local co-op, Midcounties (the second biggest, I think) has a number of Food Market stores which have a really decent range. But if you go by Tesco and Asda you’ll be disappointed.
- bowsamic 4y agoUK supermarkets are far better in terms of fruit and veg selection than anything we have here in Germany. It can be much worse trust me. UK is also way cheaper
- kube-system 4y agoThat explains the fruit and vegetables we have in the US in Aldi. I buy produce elsewhere.
- sdfhdhjdw3 4y agoWeird, I just moved to the US and Aldi is one of my favorite places. Where do you go for produce? I'm in Chicago if that matters.
- kube-system 4y agoI like Aldi, just not for produce. For produce I usually go somewhere more premium like a Whole Foods, Fresh Market, or a local specialty grocery store. Or Costco, if I want a lot.
- zargon 4y agoNot the grandparent, but I buy produce at Costco, local grocery chain, Whole Foods, and local natural foods co-op. Aldi is basically the worst produce available, second to Walmart/Target/convenience-store. I used to go there for bananas because they were a lot cheaper and acceptable (but lower) quality, but recently their banana prices haven't been lower.
- assttoasstmgr 4y agoCostco and specific midrange grocery stores like Kroger/Safeway/Publix etc. In Chicago there are many great independent grocery stores especially in the suburbs. Check out Village Market Place in Skokie. I say specific because I found the quality varies greatly from store to store, and likely who the produce manager is. As much as I hate to say it, the stores in the more affluent neighborhoods carry higher quality produce. Some of the highest quality produce I've found was at Costco, with a "picked/packed on" date of just 2-3 days prior to purchase. The downside is you have to buy in bulk, so be prepared to freeze or plan accordingly.
- bluedino 4y agoAlso has great produce. The section just varies from week to week. I got a great deal on small cucumbers and mangos but next week they didn't have either.
- prennert 4y agoHonestly? Where are you shopping, what are you comparing to each other? I think the segmentation of stores in the UK and Germany are very different. UK has Waitrose and (for some things) M&S for high quality fruit and veg. But they are also highly priced. Germany does not have a posh equivalent. However the common non-discounters (Rewe, Kaufland, Edeka, Globus), are really not bad. I am not sure about the exact number of fruit and veg SKUs in Tescos and Sainsburys (UK) but I often find them of less quality than I remember them in Germany. I never had issues shopping fruit or veg in Germany nor the UK though. I also noticed that the UK imports very aggressively non-seasonal products from afar. Like beans from Peru or blueberries from Morocco. I am not sure of that happens in Germany, too. So potentially you are noticing exotic fruit and veg having a different availability, which might be due to different customer awareness towards the impact on the climate of imported goods from afar.
- zarzavat 4y agoEverything other than Waitrose in the UK is a “budget” brand. That’s why the selection is poor, and why the presence of a Waitrose makes house prices go up around it.
- bpye 4y agoWaitrose also has their own essentials range which isn't particularly expensive.
- MonaroVXR 4y agoIsn't discount supermarket a perception. I mean they are all supermarkets.
- OJFord 4y agoOnly in the sense that low-end anything is 'a perception', since they are all after all 'that thing'?
- bowsamic 4y agoRewe and EDEKA aren’t bad but are far more expensive than UK supermarkets and still have less selection. The quality is higher though. Lidl is about the same but far more expensive. Aldi Nord is far worse than Aldi Süd which is in the UK Btw I would definitely say that most Germans consider Rewe to be the posh equivalent
- MonaroVXR 4y agoHow is thos possible? When the Lidl and Aldi are both in the UK and Germany and what about the Netherlands? From my understanding the Netherlands is the same as Germany.
- bowsamic 4y agoLidl is about the same but far more expensive. Aldi Nord is far worse than Aldi Süd which is in the UK
- Sytten 4y agoLived in Denmark for a while, it was worst than anything I experienced in Germany and much more expensive. Though I found smaller shops, asian and middle eastern run with great vegetables and tofu (hard to find for some reason). And this was in Copenhagen mind you.
- bowsamic 4y agoI have also heard this. It’s just so variable depending on local expectation and country
- dgellow 4y agoWhat German supermarket are you comparing too? Rewe, Edeka, and Real have a very wide offering of fruits and vegetables. Are you comparing to discounters? In my experience Germany has the best supermarkets I’ve ever encountered, with ridiculously aggressive prices.
- bowsamic 4y agoRewe and EDEKA are extremely expensive compared to UK supermarkets
- kome 4y agoah I noticed as well. UK supermarkets are great for junk food or novelties (Marks & Spencer is fun), but it's hard to buy good, simple food. Italy has greats supermarket and grocery stores. Also Hungary has bad supermarkets, in my opinion.
- sdfhdhjdw3 4y agoI think part of it is that UK standards are lower when it comes to food, yes. I know this might be offensive, but I think there's some truth to it. The reason I think there's truth to it is that it works in the opposite direction too. Standards for food are higher in Italy than in Portugal and guess what? Their grocery stores are better than the Portuguese ones. Comparing meat specifically in Portugal vs UK, it's generally awful in the UK, but I've never heard anyone there complaining about it. Therefore, the standards must be lower, even if by simple virtue of people not knowing any better.
- fredley 4y agoI think you're right. For example in EU supermarkets you will typically find, separately: white onions, brown onions, sweet onions etc. In the UK: onions. Maybe sometimes also 'large onions'. Same goes for most other produce. It's chicken and egg, as the demand for this won't materialise without awareness and the awareness won't arise without the knowledge there even are different types of onions, I imagine most Brits are clueless.
- floren 4y agoWhat type of onions are the UK "onions"? I'd assume white onions because they're attractive and versatile?
- tpict 4y agoAs a British expat, the “yellow onions” you see in US supermarkets are most familiar.
- jen20 4y agoAlso as a British expat, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in Bath had all of the types of onion you’d find in the US pre-pandemic - though I haven’t been back since. I’d imagine Brexit may have ruined that.
- 4y ago
- petercooper 4y agoMaybe it's just a coincidence, but since Brexit I've noticed the shelf life of fruit and veg has gone through the floor (I suspect the time the produce takes to reach the shelf has increased). For things that have advisory "best by" dates on (e.g. strawberries), where you used to get a date a week in the future, now you need to take care to not buy something with tomorrow's date. In semi-related news, The Independent ran a story yesterday about how Brexit is causing less British fruit and veg to be produced: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-british-food-supermarkets-farmers-b2092612.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-britis...
- rightbyte 4y agoI have noticed the same thing with Christmas trees. They lose their "tiny green things" (name?) earlier. Maybe picker/cutter shortages? Like instead of picking the strawberries or cutting trees with 10 people in one week 5 people do it in two weeks? To fill up one truck load.
- diggernet 4y ago"needles"
- itcrowd 4y agoI understand people here debating veggies and fruits or meat. But Christmas trees? How often does one buy one? Once a year? Might have been a fluke? Or do you have a compelling reason to relate this to Brexit?
- rightbyte 4y agoMore of a point for the general phenomena. I don't think it has anything to do with the EU or not. Rather I think there has been some industry wide "efficiency gain" in picking/harvesting/cutting stuff that make the product worse when you buy it. Obviously the Christmas tree can be a fluke. But so was my mom's and my tree the year earlier. In my childhood they still had like moist resin and smelled alot. But the ones you buy nowadays are dull.
- CraigJPerry 4y agoOne benefit of all the working from home has been a few commuter towns around me have revived their high streets. E.g. i have two awesome butchers nearby, the fruit and veg shop is way better than 5 years ago in terms of selection - quality and price was always good there but selection is fantastic now. I’ve got lots of random little shops nearby now, e.g. a coffee roaster, a social food thingy etc etc 5 years ago this town mostly had just hairdressers on the Main Street.
- azalemeth 4y agoI noticed that things got substantially worse in my local shops after Brexit. However, I don't think it's entirely that, or directly at least: if you find a "real" greengrocers (at a market stall or otherwise), you'll find a very much larger range of interesting veg than you normally see. I think that the big shops like standardising on things that sell very well, and fruit and veg are sort of the worst of worlds for them – readily perishable, wide range but low cost and low margins, and fussy customers who (famously) will leave "wonky" cucumbers on the shelves at the end of the day. The economic shit-show of the last few years has made supermarkets very price conscious and the first thing they can cut that actually has a meaningful impact on their bottom line, but is unlikely to be noticed, is their range of fresh goods. If you're interested, in Denmark it's amazing to see the cultural differences – lots of lovely vegetables but with many different types of carrots, swede and turnips!
- quickthrower2 4y agoWhat I remember of the UK you had to inspect everything you buy closely. In Australia you don’t it is pretty much all good. Also avocado and mangos taste good in Australia and are hard and tasteless in UK. Most fruit is grown in Australia except out of season stuff that is easy to spot by it being triple the normal in season price.
- usr1106 4y agoMy daugther was born in Finland. She always loved to eat fruit. When she was 2 we went to Australia and suddenly she did not want to eat "the same" fruit anymore. Well, they really tasted like fruit and not like colored water. The UK might be marginally better than Finland, but they also get a lot of imported watery taste from Spain etc.
- maccard 4y ago>they also get a lot of imported watery taste from Spain etc. A lot of this is just eating out of season fruit grown in greenhouses and picked early to be transported to be "ripe" on the shelves. Eating fresh Italian tomatoes in February is as poor an experience as eating UK tomatoes in February, but eating them in June is likely to be much better in both cases.
- iggldiggl 4y agoThough with some bad luck, your tomato won't be tasty even in June: https://web.archive.org/web/20190601232951/https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/sonntagszeitung/warum-die-tomate-immer-gleich-fad-schmeckt/story/15844610 https://web.archive.org/web/20190601232951/https://www.tages... (Farmers allege and a Swiss supermarket chain actually confirms that for their supermarkets they prefer tomato varieties that "deliver a consistent taste all year round", so instead of mediocre tomatoes in winter and great tomatoes in summer instead you get mediocre-tasting tomatoes all year round…)
- MonaroVXR 4y agoIs the UK supermarket the same as the Netherlands?
- mbrodersen 4y agoI have lived, worked, and paid taxes in 5 countries. And it was obvious to me that the food standards in England (and the US) was lower than most European countries. Sorry if that offends but I believe this to be true based on personal experience living there.
- rayiner 4y ago> I find this every time I shop on the continent. Are our standards that much lower? Is it just Brexit? I yearn for a European supermarket experience in the UK. I think it’s an Anglo thing. Canada, the US, and Australia are all like this too.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoAustralian supermarkets have gotten much better in the last few years. The quality is still lower than what you can find in your local green grocer or butcher, but there is a wider variety of items and specific supermarkets will carry items for the local community that other locations won't have. And so long as you buy in season, the supermarket is usually fine.
- laurencerowe 4y agoHonestly I miss U.K. supermarkets now I live in the US. (I moved before Brexit so things are probably much worse there now.) Tesco somehow always managed to have what I needed but my local Safeway in SF frequently has empty shelves (predating the pandemic.) And unless you go to Trader Joe’s (which is missing a bunch of other stuff) there’re no nice freshly preprepared meals available.
- bpye 4y agoI moved from the UK to Canada and still miss UK supermarkets to a degree. That said, I went back for ~1 month last summer and often ended up needing to go to multiple supermarkets to find basic things such as chicken breasts... If Brexit isn't the cause I'd be very surprised.
- AngusH 4y agoMore likely covid was the issue (assuming you went in 2021?) A lot of unavoidable staff sickness has caused major troubles in manufacturing and delivery of goods. Plus some real stupidity relating to tax and licensing of lorry drivers. :-( Yes, brexit has had an effect, but I think covid is more significant.
- bpye 4y agoYeah it was August of 2021.
- rr808 4y agoPortugal is a difficult comparison because it has a great climate and very low wages. Compared to Northern France, Netherlands, Scandanavia etc British supermarkets are pretty decent.
- basisword 4y ago>> At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg How much do you need? Is the problem that the supermarkets are crap or that your expectations are stupidly high? Any large Tesco/Sainsburys etc has every vegetable that I’ve ever tasted available all year round.
- jhbadger 4y agoThat reminds me of a scene from the movie "Infamous" which is about Truman Capote and Harper Lee traveling to rural Kansas in the 1960s to research Capote's true crime book "In Cold Blood". Truman visits a grocery store to buy cheese and only finds Velveeta processed cheese there. He asks an employee if that's all the cheese they have. The employee says "Well, how much do you need?" missing the point that it wasn't the amount but the lack of variety that was the issue.
- baby 4y agoSame in France. My parents basically never go there and just shop at farmers’ markets, or butchers, or bakers, or fishermen, etc. Although I remember waitrose in the UK not being bad
- KuiN 4y agoMy greatest frustration with UK supermarkets is the illusion of choice. You'll find metres of shelving with the same product in different branding / price points. Went looking for Thai Jasmine rice, but the rice section is just 40 variants of Basmati, & one box of Arborio. There's 5 metres of fridges packed with fish but it's all Cod, Haddock and Salmon in various guises. If you want any ingredient that's remotely off the beaten track (and I'm not talking super exotic stuff, basics herbs like Sage are hard to find) you've got to go Waitrose or specialty shops.
- fredley 4y agoThis fucks me off no end. As someone who eats vegemite, to find a full meter of shelving dedicated to Marmite in various formats almost everywhere is very frustrating. For long shelf life goods what's the downside of just providing more options?