Supermarket comparisons - UK vs. Germany

ah thats the rib! what qualifies you to judge quality? if independent testing from food experts has proved that Aldi delivers quality, what do you know that they dont?

I wouldn't know as I don't read the trashy press

<Rustles Bunte & Gala>
My ex boyfriend leaves it by the loo, I swear!

they use alot of artificial redder lighting. it makes fruit and veg look better. used in a heck of alot of supermarkets btw. they also spend hours putting the nicest bits in cute presentations. its all show realy, but there again where isn't it? as for taste, blind taste it and compare sometime...

No, the point has been missed. I am saying that for somone else ready meals might be a quality dinner. For me it wouldn't. The people who are assessing the quality of ready meals are ONLY measuring the ready meals with the variable being the store. I doubt they have measured the quality of a ready meal against the quality of a freshly prepared meal.

they do no tuse artificial lighting at the market stalls I go to. Maybe I am blind. I always take the tomatoes out of any lighting and look at them that way to check the colour. I am well aware of their tricks! Also, I pick from the nicest displays ;-)
I think I might blind taste it actually. Someone would have to go to Aldi for me though

aldi/lidl dont realy do many ready meals btw, and you'll very rarly see people buying those that they have., so what are you rtalking about? you are a snob my dear, no worries though if it wasnt for people like you others couldnt make a profit by cheating you...

sure he does

They have frozen pizzas do they not, and macaroni cheese in a box? Student food! I am not talking about the shiny, fresh ones from Tesco.
I still disagree! I am not being ripped off paying more for fresh meat from the neighbouring farm! I may be supporting local firms and farmers but I would rather support that than the crass over commercialisation of food. You are what you eat (and no smart comments on me being a cow or pig as I don't eat meat )!!

thw pizzas are as good as any other i've eaten from a freezer! as for macarroni and cheese who eats that? mellisa, you shop where you want but dont be a snob about it, thats all, just because your rich, doesnt mean other people are not, lack self respecting nor are junk food unfit plebs...

oh shit just seen your a veggie... that eyplains everything.

volentary vegitarianism is a privilage of the rich!

or as i would say, never trust a person who doesnt eat a bacon sandwich..

someone eats it as they stock it! Lots of my flat mates did too! And I haven't eaten a frozen pizza in years. I was just pointing out what I classed as ready meals and agreeing that perhaps a pizza in Aldi and one in tesco may have been assessed as bwing of similar quality.

Which people VERY rarely eat, if they are in a hurry or don't want to cook.

You are imagining (wrongly as Gideon has pointed out) that discounting supermarkets don't sell basic stnadard foods that can hold their own against the brands in blind testing my independent experts.

It's a capitalist market and you're just in a niche.

Reminds me of an idea and a pssible thread, maybe tomorrow as I'm now off home where there is a HOMEMADE Shepherds Pie waiting to be scoffed. Bit hot for it, but ex boyf requested I make him one.

I KNEW saying I didn't eat meat would provoke that. Crazy flipping veggies
I was a veggie at school too. And it actually costs less to be a veggie than eat meat. When my husband is away the food bills drop dramatically!!

karma for the home made pie ;-)

But WHAT are these basic foods? I would be surprised if i could fill my larder with goods from Aldi but I am open to your suggestions!

ULTIMATE FOODIE FIGHT.
lets all go shopping together sometime! and then cook the same meal from different suppliers.
is it the right weather for a shepards pie???

What I'd call basic foods, I've left out the meats I eat:

Flour, sugar, pasta, rice

milk, eggs, butter, cream, yoghurt

Potatoes carrots, onions, tomatoes, salad, apples, bananas, peppers

oil salt vinegar

Tinned or bottled fruit and veg including tomatoes, peppers, olives.

I just have to add my two cents in here. First off, if I see that used mop and dirty water in the bucket that they have used for three weeks in a row to wash these floors in the grocery store. I will become sick. I have never in my life seen such uncleanliness as I see in these food stores here. From floors to shevles to cash registers to all of it. And people that handle food to go to school for three years to learn this execellant system here, should be taught about proper hygene. For example, if you handle food you wear a glove. What if you picked a hangnail and had aids your blood now goes all over everyones food that they put in their mouth.
Remember bodily fluids. Or what about an egg sold on a warm counter and some are broken and left aside right there. But as soon as we get home that box of eggs what do we do, we put it in the refrigerator. Why we are stopping salminella poisoning of that egg. At least refrigerated we have a chance. Where is the date code on these eggs. There isn`t one. All American food processors must be health inspected randomly, and all employees must undergo tesing of how to handle food. These licenses must be updated yearly. In each of these tests you know what chemical you can clean floors with while food is on the shelf and what chemical you can not. All produce must be labeled from which country it came from. Believe me all countries spray their food and pick it underripe. All have chemical agents for ripening all have chemical for insect damage. All Bananas are all picked green and hard as a rock. Why so that they will last for the duration of shipment. We get them here just about 1 week before they are no longer any good. I have never seen a carrot that rots in about a week after purchase. This is a root crop and should last about six months. Why they are sprayed. And the rip off that is here about BIO is unbelievable. Go to Bremenhaven where most of this fruit is shipped in on huge ships, tomatoes in with Bananas, or whatever. All from different countries all onboard these ships and these people can call it BIO and charge outragious. Why do Germans get the lowest of vegetables because that is not their main food. Italians eat more tomatoes and the fresher the better. But Germans eat more sausages, and cold meat. Look at the variety there. And laced with so much salt for preservative that you would feed arterial scerolsis to about five new victims. And they go to school for three years for this. Well what did they learn. How to put the freshest food to the back no they have not. Look at your dates. Most all have expired. And the reason there is now a bread store in every grocery store is because they are getting the rent from this bakery. If there was merchandise to be sold in its place and it didn`t sell, your out that money along with throwing out that produce. But if you put a bakery in that same place, you don`t have to hire the people and you get rent what a concept. Infact if you look at Kaufhof with all of those name brand logos overhead in their clothing stores, all of these logoed merchandise puts them in and if they don`t sell the owners of the logos must remove them at their costs. And they must pay rent so many square meters persection to Kaufhof. So if their product doesn`t sell Kaufhof still will get their rent.

I don't know where you go shopping, but the eggs I buy have dates on them.

Think they mean a date on each egg and not on the box. Supermarkets can switch boxes.

holy crap, my eyes are bleeding after reading that. i notice 10:48pm as the post time, was this a stream of consciousness rant? (alcohol-infused?)

to get back to mellelisa. my wife and i are both at management level with a reasonable amount of expendable income, but due to time constraints buy convenience food, ie frozen asian veg for stir fries. oh, and i LOVE a couple of frozen pizzas in front of the telly (once heated of course). it appears that you are lucky enough to have the time to spend your money as you choose, flitting from delicatessen to delicatessen. the rest of us need to fit in the shopping as and when possible. oh, and Aldi is spanking great for all your household goods too, not necessarily just food. perhaps... don't knock it until you've tried it, eh?

Can't agree more. Drives me mad here that I can't go to just one big superstore late evening when I finish work and buy everything. Instead I have to use my breaks to drive to several different stores, one for animal food, one for people food, etc. etc.

My eggs all have dates printed on them.

both the box and the eggs have dates on, true. noticed that mine came from the netherlands the other day though as i assume that 'nl' before the date denotes this. i hope the dutch are feeding my chickens only the finest marijuana

Bollocks, a foodie rant thread, and I missed it.

German supermarkets are crap, Aldi is an absolute pit - but Aldi does stock some decent produce amongst the crap, and shopping at Aldi has absolutely nothing to do with class - even the richest Germans are tighter than a gnat's chuff, FACT. They simply hate spending money.
I know Aldi very very well (sadly), and the frozen shit like pizzas does not shift too fast atall. Dairy stuff sells loads, fresh veg sells loads (get there early to get the best stuff, and they DO stock "exotic" fruits on occasion - I get more papaya and mango from aldi than anywhere else). Aldi bread is absolutely dire on the whole, but some bits are OK, however its still more of a "standby" bread than your daily loaf. Wine sells well, and is of good quality on the whole.
On the theme of rotting vegetables; its ridiculous to having rotting stuff on the shelves but too many people seem to me to have been lulled into that English false sense of security of plastic wrapped goods with sell by dates. OK, so you will trust Tesco to tell you that your food is OK, but not your own fucking eyes!?! Just don't buy the rotten crap! Finger through ALL the veg, making sure you get the best bits. Worrying about sell by dates on eggs?!?!?! Putting eggs in the FRIDGE!??!?! I'd be more worried about an egg that has been date stamped in some battery farm than one covered in shit and feathers. How do you know if its fresh? Crack it.

I repeat, quality food is my priority. I choose to spend my time and money there. I am also a professional and still fit it in...because I want to. same for exercise. i choose to do that. Some people choose to play computer games or knit or whatever instead. I can fit in shopping around my lifestyle. And I have been to Aldi, and it was depressing. Germans may well shop there a lot but it is hardly the capital of gastronomy ;-)

Drop an egg in a glass of water. If it lies on the bottom = fresh, if stands up = use soon. If it floats = throw away.


"Bio" is a legally protected name and only given to food that fulfills the conditios laid down by the EU. The product is certified and selling stuff as "Bio" that isn't is an offence and retailers are fined if caught.

no it is still the same, except they open earlier to let you 'browse'

not what they said on a recent german documentary (forget which channel) They said that Bio and Öko were a rip-off in general. No certainty that you actaully get Bioor Öko stuff at all.

alright, my ideas...

first London, u go into a medium sized supermarket type thing, u find millions of things, only u find a thousand different makes of each thing but very little variety on the whole. for veg and meat, u get the same three or 4 things at a normal price, then an extra ten at ridiculous prices(and its all out of season anyway). So we can get, oranges (taste of nothing), apples (marginally better), sometimes pears and ALWAYS green of black bananas, hardly any in between. on top of everything the average quality is awful and an average weeks shop would cost at least 50 quid and thats living sparsely.(ok it IS london but hey!) Goddamn it i hate england and everything about it!!

2nd, Germany, i have no idea!! i havent arrived yet ! but someone PLEASE tell me its better! im used to apsin and good food alll the time!
Been to Austria and was V.impressed by the food available in supermarkets and the quality of it. Also the fact that everyone seemed to have a local farmer, genius!

anton
------

@Pirulero

If you think London supermarkets are cack then you are in for one big fucking shock when you arrive here.

I think you would get better produce and a wider selection in a Nigerian corner shop just after a drought and plague of locusts had swept through town.

I cannot remember being to a Western country with worse supermarkets than Germany. Spain, France, Italy, USA, Australia, Hong Kong, etc all have much much better supermarkets than here. I have 5 local supermarkets near me, all the big names, and you cannot buy a fresh sardine, let alone any decent seafood.

It is not even a question of pricing - quality supermarkets simply do not exist here.

If Tesco opened over here I would gladly pay double the UK prices to get some decent stuff.

This place is a gastronomic dead end. Food is better in Austria. It is the one thing that could make me leave frankly. My only chance is to earn enough money to fly in emergency supplies via the Red Cross.

@Johnny English. I am inclined to agree with what you said. BUT have you been to Kaufhof recently? The new look food hall downstairs is impressive. If this could be the future and it catches on then maybe there is hope? There is of course only this one shop and parking in the area has become a complete nightmare but I live in hope.

It is however, not somewhere for your weekly shop. I miss Waitrose. But for sure, Tesco would do!

I miss Tesco too. I recently sold my flat in the UK, and to bring the last bits and bobs to Germany, took a nice big car over. I went to Tesco and bought 48 tins of tesco value baked beans (think heinz make them), 12 bottles of Robinson's no added sugar squash, 10 packets Kelloggs Fruit 'n Fibre and a jar of Marmite. Apart from that, the advantage of cheapo German supermarkets with limited choice means that I never get carried away when I'm doing the shopping. In England, I might just 'pop' in with only a basket to get some bread, milk and juice and end up with my arms being pulled out of their sockets because of all the other interesting stuff I found!

i was in france the other week and revelled in the enormous choice from their packed shelves. fresh everything. every cut of meat from every animal, great veg and the cheese and wine selection! well it was france. so dismal to come back here and be faced with the crappy little supermarket with a piss-poor selection of uninspiring food. hm well, i chose to live here but oh for a mahoosive out-of-town tesco within easy reach of freising!

re: seafood
There is no fresh seafood here because there is no sea. I love seafood and I miss fish & seafood. at the same time I accept that I am nowhere near the sea. so i stick my cheese and wurst :-)
I buy my fish at Hertie, i know it is expensive but once in a while i can afford it.

I miss tesco!

I moved to munich only a few months ago but I've already found out:
- the selection of yogurt at gas staions is crap
- the selection of fresh vegetables in supermarkets is crap
- the selection of stationary at post offices is crap

Or in other words: Supermarkets are only good for stuff which can be kept for at least a month. They are not the place for buying fresh veggies.
Supermarket: Rice - yes, flour - yes, frozen veggies - yes, fresh veggies - no, bread - no, meat - no
On-stop-shopping doesn't exist in Munich. But as you only have to go to a supermarket once a month you should have enough time left to shop for the other stuff somewhere else.

And I love, love, love these open air markets: http://www.muenchen.de/print?depl=prod&oid=125567
(Disclaimer: I haven't been to all of these markets yet, there may be some which are not worth the visit.)

Wrong. Just North of Munich there is a dirty great fish farm. You can go to Viktualienmarkt and they'll fish one live out of a tank, whack it over the head, gut it, and they don't get any fresher than that. However, lets not be under any illusions about the quality of farmed fish - describing fish farms as 'dirty' is an understatement. The fish grow up in a cocktail of antibiotics and excrement and are fed hormones to make them fat quickly. We can argue if all farms are the same, or if this is good for you or not, but in certain cases this is the truth.

Edit: And lets not forget the five or so huge lakes near here...


Do you really? Quite depressing, really. Go to Viktualienmarkt, buy poultry from Wild Und Geflugel Poerrer, other meat from Metzgerei Eisenreich, cheese from Toelzer Kas Laden, bread from the Hofpfisterei and fruit and veg from your local greengrocer. Other stuff you're safe getting from any German supermarket. Then tell me if you still miss Tesco.

I have to confess to loving cooking (because I love eating) and spending a higher proportion of my money than most on food. If you shop around Munich will offer you some of the best fresh produce I've ever seen, and it isn't 'expensive' for the quality - we've all got used to 'cheap' industrial farm produce.

Re: Tesco - they're slowly moving into the European market after purchasing ex-Carrefour places in Eastern, sorry, Central Europe.

Sorry, too lazy to do a real search but in case anyone has been looking for it, HIT (at least the one in PEP) is carrying cranberry juice from Ocean Spray - sort of a co-brand with Becker's Bester juices.

Ah, German supermarkets. My favorite. Suffice it to say that I like HIT, although it still isn't good enough. All of the others you can just forget about. Their only redeeming quality is that they are pretty damn cheap...if you shop at Penny/Aldi/Lidl etc. you are really not spending a lot - but as one says, you get what you pay for.

Sainsbury's...mmmmmmm. Now that's a good supermarket.

You can get cheap supermarkets anywhere though; it's not a 'redeeming' feature or quality of German consumerism. e.g. in Britain you get Quik Save to name but one.

True, but it seems to me like almost all German supermarkets are a lot cheaper than at least the supermarkets that I've been to in the US and the UK. Back when I was poor I could get by on one or two Penny runs a week at €20 each. I don't know how I could have lived on that in the US - I really don't think it would have been possible.

I think it's because there's less tax on groceries over here than in the UK. In the UK they're pretty big on stealth tax, i.e. lower income tax but more spread out on day-to-day stuff which you buy. Then again, I could be wrong *shock horror*
It is possible to get by on GBP 10-15/week though. I was a student too

This is no excuse. How much of what you see on the Waitrose or Tesco fish counter do you think came out of the Thames? or even the North Sea?

Much of the fresh fish in the UK supermarkets has travelled 1,000 miles to get there. You can get swordfish, crayfish, lobster, tiger prawns, red snapper etc - it has all been imported.

Obviously "historically" fish down here would not be part of the National diet, but then again in the UK the stuff we eat today is also not the same as 50 years ago. I think it is just a sign that the Germans are more conservative in their food choices (along with a few other things).

Hom[i]e Chef™ sez:

Finnish Supermarkets pretty much rule for quality, Germany is sp-so, UK (my opinion based on living in Belfast, though) was shock horror someone shat in my morning coffee - treatment.

Here in Berlin I get stuff cheaper than in any of the other countries mentioned. I buy my greens from the market places or Turks downstairs, more exotic stuff (I love cooking what I call Pseudo-Asian KrissKross-Kitchen, also™) like soy products, spices, coconut stuffs, etc, from the Chinese & Vietnamese shops (don't tell me you don't have these in Munich!!!??) and the rest from Plus, Kaufland, mostly. Don't eat much bread anymore, no Finnish black bread here dammit, but whenever I do, I wouldn't even THINK of any other option than the Bakeries, which are all over.

Bottom note: Tesco is maybe the shittiest excuse for a supermarket I've ever seen in my life.

Coming up: Hom[i]e Chef™ moves to Munich and finds out things are different from Berlin.

Jesus H. Quntana... bagging UK supermarkets in favour of german (or since I spy Don Riina, Kraut markets) in this crowd, is like walking into a girls hockey team locker room and shouting "yo why are you chicks all so ugly?" Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but your definitely setting yourself up to get your ass beat down with a stick. HAHAHAHAHAA. You're going to like this forum just fine.

Don't know anything about Finnish cooks, but here' the best (Swedish) Chef Ever:
[img]http://farm.tucows.com/2004/12/swedish_chef.jpg[/img]

Never compare that scumhole to anywhere in MY country thank you. Of course supermarkets there are shite, no point stocking any quality food for the locals. Be like putting a silk hat on a fucking pig.


As quite a few posts on this thread have mentioned, thats hardly a convenient option for anyone who actually goes to work.

This is my reasoning. I am sure if you make it your mission in life, you can track down maybe 85% of the stuff you get in the UK, maybe even fresher and cheaper etc. But this normally involves pissing about going to 5 shops, an open-air market on the right day, and maybe a couple of specialist stores.

Back in the real world you just wanna walk into one shop, once a week, and buy food you can eat without checking every sell by date, check the fruit is not rotting, and get a variety of stuff including exotic items like fresh fish.

I quite like food but I cant be arsed to spend any time actually buying or cooking the damn stuff.

That's really the point. I work at least 10 hours a day (I know, pity parade ) and I'm lucky if I make it to the supermarket once a week 10 minutes before closing time. All of those specialist shops have closed hours ago. I'm sure if I were unemployed I'd have lots of time to go shopping...oh wait...but then I'd have no money. Catch 22.

UA, I'm sure you're right - I was never a student in the UK. Actually, when I go there now I have a fun game I like to play. It's called "pretend that the currency isn't GBP". Then everything is actually quite affordable.

Anyway the Germs are getting me on the income tax side now so all's well that ends well.

There is no VAT on food in Britain (although booze is taxed more heavily than here).

Knusper Muesli hit the nail on the head.