Why do supermarkets in Munich suck?

If you want to buy good meat in Germany you go to the butcher. Supermarkets probably don't sell good meat because nobody wants to buy it there.
(Something I would be hesitant to do in the UK. I saw two butcher shops there, the one on Cricklewood broadway in London and the one in the Pakistani shop near Willesden Green station. The one on Cricklewood broadway was so dirty that I'm sure it would be closed down officially in Germany. Really unbelievable. The Pakistanis sold chicken as green as gras. Really kind of surreal. Just in case anybody is planning a barbecue in Willesden Green or Cricklewood. DON'T go there! )

This subject has been discussed ad nauseum on Toytown and every time this turns into a discussion over the differences between supermarkets in the UK and Germany!? Has anyone here actually lived anywhere else in Europe?! Can anyone claim that food shopping is better here than in France or Italy, for instance, where you have a full range of options going from hypermarkets to medium-sized supermarkets to the "local butcher" that everyone always raves on and on about? As I have said many times, there are some great things about life in Germany, but just don't talk about food shopping, just don't go there.

Ironic EU AC as the Meat Hygiene Service in the UK, a government agency has even been praised by the German press for the high standards that UK meat now meets.
Negative comments (the magazine Private Eye is good for this) suggest that the MHS is about destroying small butchers for the benefit of knuts like Dewhurst and Tesco.

<pokes JW with a pointy stick, that location I mentioned is still empty>

I'm working on it man!

JW, yeah, I have. Spanish grocery stores are not really any better than German ones. Carrefour (two of them I've been at in BCN and (one) Alcampo (which belongs to Auchan) compare to grocery stores like Kaufland. They do have fresh sea food & fish here but then Barcelona is on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (and it makes grocery stores smell nasty, so I would actually prefer they didn't have it). There are certain things grocery stores here have a wider selection of and other things they have a smaller selection of (based on cultural differences / preferences). Not really that many fresh prepared meals either, though Carrefour do wraps and sandwiches that are pretty good (but then so do some places in Germany, I remember Aldi also do them). I miss cut-up fruit here occasionally (which I know are better at Tesco than in Germany, one of the things I appreciated while I was in London in August, but here they do not seem to have them at all, except at the market, the Boquería has a huge choice of that kind of stuff). In the end the things that I really need (and do not just want once a year) I can buy in German and Spanish grocery stores.

Inceidently, M&S is expanding right now into eastern Europe, also taking previously franchised stores back directly in house.
They have seen a market and are going for it.
They DON'T see a market right now in Germany.

I must have seen the bad exceptions then. Or maybe 2004 is too long ago.
As to M&S: as far as I know they have already tried to expand to Germany once (and withdrew like GAP and that other huge American chain, what was its name again)

I've lived in Spain. Italy, England, the U.S. (both coasts) and Japan and now Germany. A quick rundown: I agree with Mariposa: the supermarkets in Spain were not great. I went to the farmers markets for produce--the produce wasn't bad but the seasons for many things (artichokes for example) were amazingly fleeting. The fish was wonderful. Italian supermarkets (such as they were) were not great, either, but the produce was fabulous and I just went to the butcher shop for meat. I didn't find either market particularly "adventurous"--perhaps that is where I lived. I found the U.K. supermarkets vastly superior in everything but shipped produce. (I cried the first time I ate a French peach and it wasn't from joy.) I loved the convenience food, but I saw the specialy markets on the High Street and the village shops being squeezed out and wasn't happy about that, either. Generally speaking, the west coast of the U.S. has the best supermarkets in that country but that situation is finally changing. Even New Englanders and the Deep South are finally getting in better places to shop. Japanese supermarkets are expensive, produce is limited but good, and the basement foodhalls are amazing. As to Germany--sorry--I find them shockingly bad--they don't even smell like supermarkets! The bread is great here, but...can one live by bread alone? I do to the farmer's markets and the Vitualmarket in Stuttgart.

Hmmm.

I find this kind of thing so interesting. People choose to come to work and live in a certain country, and then complain that it isn't as good as 'back home'. If you wanted life to be just like back home, then stay 'back home'. I know I'm new to this forum, but there seems to be an awful amount of whingeing going on.

I've lived in France, Spain and the UK, and I'm originally from the Caribbean and everywhere has its good and bad points. In Trinidad, we get a lot of American products, so I am totally in love with Kraft Parmesan cheese and Yoplait yogurts, among other things like Aunt Jemima. You can't get those in the UK, except in Selfridges. But I got over it. When I went home for the holidays, I always brought back a little stash with me. M&S does really good ready meals and I'm a total Tesco lover. When I was a student though, Aldi was THE place to shop.

In Spain, I shopped at Eleclerc, Carrefour, Spar and independent shops (pescaderia, etc) and I'd go to the market in town on a Thursday. It wasn't just like the UK, but why should I expect it to be? In France, Carrefour was the nearest place for me, so I shopped there. When I went into town, I'd go to the bakery and what not. All good. Now I'm here, I don't see anything wrong with the shopping. I love doing the food shop and cooking proper meals from scratch and I have no complaints thus far. We live pretty close to a V-markt and I can get the train to HIT. Like other posters have said, for things you need for everyday life, like bread, milk, eggs etc, are easily found. My only thing is the brands, since my husband likes his tea, but to me that's part of the fun. You get to experiment with new things and find new favourites. Things I know I'm really anal about, I brought with me, like my Green Tea with Earl Grey or Jasmine from Whittards and Lady Grey by Twinings. Everything else, who cares? Beef is beef, chicken is chicken, rice is rice. If I want super-fresh veg, I walk down to that guy on Rosenheimer Platz, but usually, it's good enough from V-markt. I could say that in Trinidad, it's super-fresh because you can stop by a road-side hut and buy it directly from a farmer who'd just picked it and is selling it to try and make ends meet. But why? If I wanted stuff to be just like in Trinidad, I'd go back there.

We're living in a gorgeous city with loads to see and do, life is better and more laid back than in the UK. There's no gangs of yobs late at night on the streets, the trains are clean and they run on time and you can sit in a biergarten all day and no one gets pissed up and starts a fight, so why complain about the supermarkets? I just don't get it!

A lot of us feel the same about this place, it's great, but it doesn't stop us seeing the things that could be better. I don't expect German supermarkets to stock exactly the same stuff as you can get in Britain, but it's the standard of the produce that we criticise. There is no reason that the fruit and veg should be so poor in the supermarkets, it's just poor management. There is no reason that the cashiers need to be so grumpy, although having recently heard what Lidl have been up to with their staff maybe there is.

@islandchick - there are so many contradictions in your own post it's hard to know where to start:


OK so you are pretty much saying that you are "totally in love" with being offered overseas products that are not indigenous to the country in which you are living at that time - i.e. Trinidad. You love
imported products for variety??? We are saying the same.


Precisely. If you enjoy cooking from scratch it's pretty simple here. But if you don't then it sucks. I hate cooking so it sucks. Some people love smoking, hate skiing, love gardening, hate potholing. Everyone
is different so we are just demanding better choice.


Again you are confirming your own desires and needs for overseas non-German products. For other people these desires might be for marmite, or crisps in a flavour OTHER than one type, or who knows what?
I bloody hate Earl Grey, but that is what makes the modern world go around. We want choice, variety and some more overseas products. As to "everything else who cares?" - can you not see this opinion
is just a tiny weeny bit insular.


Just don't go there. This "go back home" bollox gets thrown up every so often (normally by German TTers). The answer is we like it here, we choose to stay, but that doesn't stop us wanting to improve things does it? And yes, this forum is all about whingeing - that is it's very essence at the core. Threads about what a lovely day we are having are boring as hell. People come here to bitch, moan and gossip. It's an outlet. Most people are happy but moaning can be fun.

I am pretty sure if living back in the UK you would be moaning about youth drinking and hoping to change it somehow?

This thread is effectively a non-thread for you. You love the supermarkets and the food here - that's great - I wish I felt the same, but I don't.

@ Johnny English:

My point is that there are things I love that I can't get in the other countries I've lived in, so I get over it. I can't get Kraft parmesan in England, so I buy something else. I can't get a decent aubergine or avocado anywhere in England either (things that many people grow themselves in Trinidad), so I buy something else. I just don't see the point of moaning about something as trivial as this. I brought my own tea, yes. But when it runs out, it runs out. And I'll buy something else from here. I bought some tea from a store in Reim for my husband. He said that it wasn't strong enough, so I used two bags and he said it was fine. I just think it's a matter of adapting. It's what the Germans are used to and expect, so I don't think it's my place to come in and moan about it.

I understand that whingeing and complaining is fun. You probably won't find a bigger complainer than me, but I just see it (the supermarket issue) as a not too important. I'd rather complain about the fact that people change seats when I sit down near to them on the train or the U-bahn, or the fact that some people choose to not even look at me or acknowledge me when me and my husband are out. Apart from that, he is amazed that I haven't found anything to complain about besides the freezing weather last week. And if you knew me, you'd be surprised too.

I have also found V-markt and HIT to have a really decent selection of ready meals and frozen foods. I have a bag of chips and frozen calamari for when I can't be bothered to cook properly. There's some noodles for a snack and I've seen loads of lasagnes and pasta dishes and pre-cooked meats and fish. So I was just a bit shocked that people were saying that there wasn't any. Yeah I haven't seen any fishcakes or crabcakes and I would murder for a fish pie or some chili prawn bucatini from M&S, but there're other things.

I choose to live in the UK, so while youth binge drinking and what not, does get on my nerves and annoys me, I just remember that I've gone through a lot of hassle to stay in a country that doesn't really want me there and lumps me in with illegal immigrant benefit cheats. But it's a choice that I am making, so I put up with it. If I didn't want to do it, I'd go back to Trinidad. I'm just saying it's a choice we're all making.

I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was just offering my two cents.

I'm confused, your profile says you're in Munich, yet you say you choose to live in the UK. Which is It?

I would rather have the way things are as opposed to the UK. In the 1980s in England, the supermarkets forced the greengrocers and bakeries out of the market, which were forced to close as a result and the quality of the products themselves totally suffered. Here in Munich you can get brilliant fruit and veg from the individual markets, and great bread, it's also so much cheaper than buying from a supermarket. If Tesco, M & S etc., decided to open stores in the fashion that they have in England then there is a likelihood that this would all stop. Ok, so it is a bit of a pain to hae to go to a couple of different places to get everything you need, but seriously are you ever that far from a Schlecker? I mean, they are everywhere and a lot are near Rewe, Tengelmanns etc.

I am just thankful that I can get great produce (anyone attempted to taste the tomatoes that are sold in England these day... ill-looking, probably GM modified tasteless crap) here in Munich and great fresh bread.

German shops could do with being a bit more adventurous with savoury snacks though. I wouldn't be opposed to the import of Squares and Quavers for example ;-)

Not sure how to say this without offending an entire nation, but I'm not actually that keen on German bread.
There. I've said it.
No I don't want Wonderbread/Mother's Pride super springy white stuff and yes I have found a bakery where I can get bread that I like at a push, but if I'm honest I generally don't get the fuss about German bread even though I've been here full-time since 1999.

Recently I took part in a Rewe survey and they asked me to rate their bread. I said I never bought bread in a supermarket.
Survey guy was gob-smacked, he just could not believe that anyone wouldn't like it.
I am that anyone.
Think breaking that tooth on some organic rye bread last year finished me and German bread off ha ha

I watched Jackass 2.0 last night on TV. If you want cheering up - I defy anyone not to laugh at some of their stuff. Pure simple and daft entertainment.

@Allershausen

I'm in Munich for a few months because my husband works here, but my job is in the UK. I've managed to wrangle extended leave from work (unpaid of course) to come out and spend some time out here and see if I'd like to move here long-term. So in theory, I'm just a long-stay visitor (or at least that's what it says on my visa!)

@ Katrina
You're not alone, I don't like it either. It has too much flavour for me. It's sounds weird I know but it dominates the flavour of a sandwich and spoils the taste of the filling. I've recently taken to importing Sliced Brown bread (Tarwe Brood) from Holland, it tastes great and is also soft without being like sponge rubber like a lot of British bread. I freeze it and make sandwiches with it whilst still frozen. I keep it in Tupperware box for a couple of hours and have it at work for breakfast. The only thing wrong with it is it's useless for toast, it just goes hard and brittle.

Is it true that Tengelmanns is the German equivalent of Spar?

Er, the German equivalent of Spar is Spar.

Except that Edeka bought Spar so now Spar is Edeka.

@ Smalltown Boy

Whoops! It's just that I haven't seen one (a Spar), and someone told me that Tenglemanns is the German equivalent. Maybe I shouldn't have believed him, as he's lived here for six years and doesn't speak a word of German. My bad.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Well thinking about it I haven't seen a Spar for a while either, so maybe they are all rebranded as Edeka now. But Spar in the UK is a convenience store whereas Tengelmann is a 'standard' medium-end supermarket, so I don't think you can compare the two.

Edit: Appears that the Spar brand does still exist, as a convenience store. Website.

Me neither and I've been here since 1990. It's just bread, isn't it? No big deal.

Perhaps you might try to 'pretend' that you are also working as you would do normally do and see if your expectations change if you have to shop later in the evening, or have less of an opportunity to visit the specialist shops for stuff etc. Even if you are an enthusiastic cook who likes to make the most of the range of ingredients at your disposal, people can find it difficult here to get the right food in the right place at the right time.

As other people have already mentioned, the quality of fresh produce can be very hit and miss (I sometimes think that if it was consistently utter crap then things would probably be easier ), and if Munich is anything like Berlin then the shops can all run out of quite obvious things like onions or potatos before 4.00pm. This is not very helpful if the stuff you had bought to cook with two days earlier has 'surprising' gone off already and a mad rush to the supermarket then also turns out to be unproductive. Not everyone enjoys rethinking their dinner plans at 7.00pm in the evening.

Edited

Sorry, I entirely misunderstood your perspective. I was working on the assumption that you were doing the bulk of your shopping at Tengelmann. V-Markt is a very different experience indeed.

I found living here part-time (and not working) very different shopping wise to living here full-time and working full-time. That was all that I was try to say.

Supermarket threads get people into a tizzy - may not be the right place to make your debut on TT!

I don't have any problem with the opening hours either, 7:30am to 8:00pm is fine by me. It's the quality that needs upping not the opening hours. Don't worry about the attacks, that's the norm here on TT, some people are very brave behind a computer screen, you'll get used to it.

It's traditional in such circumstances for one of Toytown's members to point out that, in his humble opinion, a branch of Tesco somewhere in the Bristol area is probably the worst supermarket in the world.

This is of course untrue, the worst 'supermarket' in the world is the Tesco next to the A12, Bow, East London.

In reply to islandchicks comment "beef is beef"

er, no it isn't. There's 2 kinds, one which has a light marbling of fat, and dark colouring from being properly hung, and which tastes of grass and iron and wonderful things.

Or there's german beef which they have sitting in the butchers as one solid bright red lump of meat, without a single gram of fat in it. It tastes watery and actually of nothing at all. it is actually just "meat"

My problem is, it's practically impossible to find _good meat anywhere. I wouldnt moan if the supermarkets were shit but there was a good butchers down the road, but I could never find really good meat in munich (within any sort of reasonable price, kaufhof maybe but you can't shop there regularly on a salary like mine)

It never is. Time to get used to it.


Yeah, and there are lot of things I can't get in the British supermarkets either, but so...I can't do anything about it. So you just need to buy what's there and get on with it and find the things you like.

Also, you can always bring things back from your trips back home or order stuff from the expat shops if you're so desperate for a certain item - it's as easy as this. I have been doing it that way since I came to Britain - it's no big deal.

I really don't know where you're shopping or what you are looking for that you can't get in Germany. For some things you might have to go to a more specialist shop but in a city the size of Munich you can get a lot of imported stuff. And if you really can't live without M&S ready meals, maybe you should invest in a good cookery book/class.

You can't get good meat in Britain either if you're on a small budget.

Dont worry, Supermarkets are crap the world over. Australian ones are crap for "Fruit, bread, meat and vegetables", according the CEO of one of the Australian supermarkets:

http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=17785

Oh well, no wonder so many Aussies end up in Germany, it must be because the supermarkets are superior here

well duh, obviously - i didn't mean living on pot noodles budget, just not a fucking loaded shicki münchener who can afford to do their everyday shopping at kaufhof or käfer. The point is, that you can buy a piece of beef at a supermarket (organic) or your local butchers that's not too expensive and at least tastes of something. You can't in munich (that I know of) and they sure as fuck don't sell normally priced, ok tasting fresh meat in your local expat shop.

anyway osmachar, you seriously think german crisps are the same quality as uk ones, so my value of your opinions isn't too high

actually, aussie supermarkets are really rather good for meat especially (really cheap!!), and veg too always seemed to be fresh and plentiful when I was there. Cant ever remember having good bread in oz though

@ osmachar

My sentiments exactly. Thanks for saying all this.

I don't know about butcher's in Munich as i have not lived there, but whenever i visit my relatives there they always have good food in the house and they just shop at their local shops and markets.

Yeah, the crisps in the UK are nice enough, but not something you can't live without for a few months and then just get your fix when you go over on holiday. It's not really an everyday essential food item (maybe it is for the British, I don't know) Or bring some some back or order at the expat shops - easily done.

I don't go about moaning about British shops because they don't sell 20 different types of quark or whatever. I just have to use what's available and that's okay and it has to be okay because the shops certainly won't stock it just for me.

but if you would moan it'd be ok as you are a foreigner living in a different country to the one you grew up in and obviously you have certain observations and grievances.

TT is an apt outlet ("Toytown Germany; Germany's English Speaking Crowd") for non-Germans to moan about things in Germany not being quite what they are used to.

...and they've still missed the point that I'm not moaning about something trivial like different flavours of quark, I'm talking about meat, which is quite a major part of my diet. Anyway, i'm bored of ranting now, the germans can continue putting up with bland shitty fat-free water-filled meat for all I care.

I am just trying to make an analogy to state how stupid, pointless and futile such complaints are. I say exactly the same to moany Germans in the UK.

I really don't know where you shop. If you buy cheap meat that's what you get - all over the world. Pay more and go to a decent butcher's or farmers market and you get decent meat. Its as easy as that.

such complaints are not futile on an ex-pat website where advice can be offered and experiences shared.

I'm writing to TESCO to beg them to invade and push out the complacent "take it or leave it" shoddy and cheap German "supermarkets" . TESCO is taking on ALDI in UK and once they've defeated the cheap and nasty invaders it's just a small step over the channel girls!

yup, have to agree with you there. German beef is very bland. You can get nice beef in Spain (Galicia) or Italy (Bitecca Fiorentino), sometimes even in France, but Germany is just not into eating steaks, there are nowhere near the amount of steakhouses that you would see in other lands. Why? I don't know. They really really like pork. And will sometimes eat turkey if it looks like pork (cut in small white flavourless pieces).
Tried making roulade yesterday, had to bake the things for over an hour to get something tender and tasty (though somewhat charred).

One suggestion is to buy a big cut and let the beef age in your fridge, cut off the moldy parts (or serve to guests).

It is just as futile as Germans saying 'the British can't cook' or the like.

I don't say anything about giving advice - advice is good. But despite being given enough advice people still say 'this is crap' without even trying the advice they've been given.

Kommentarlos. Opening times of hairdressers over here are just as scandalous. I have seen hairdressers in London that open until 10pm (though midnight would be better) and I have seen one that was open at 4pm on Sunday in Richmond.

It is an absolute disgrace that the hairdressers here do not open the same hours as in London. Another thing, I have to renovate my garden and the only time I have to do it is on Saturday, I have not got time to go to the garden centre on a Saturday. Why do the garden centres not open until 3am which would be great time to buy my fruit trees and my packet of beetroot seeds. Talking of renovating, why do the DIY centres not open 24/7? I need to buy 3 bathrooms but find it difficult to get to the stores during their opening times. I tell you it is a disgrace, a disgrace that I cannot choose my tiles at 4am, it just does not fit in with my lifestyle and the Germans should hang their heads with shame for the inconvenience that they cause me.

Supermarket opening times, do not get me started...I tell you. Have you any idea how many people die of starvation due to the closing hours of the supermarkets in Germany. It is like the UK was 30 years ago, bodies just being stacked up all over the place due to the supermarkets closing at 8pm. A disgrace.

Canaryman,

You are absolutely right... Although at least in Berlin I am not bothered by my neighbours being bothered by my renovation noise into the wee small hours. Thankfully they are all depressed and unemployed and are past caring about anything.

Although I am still uncertain as to whether it is better to have no pies at all (German) or a 'supermarket' that sells only Tesco 'value' pies (UK). At least they have pies after 4.00pm in London though.

Answers on a postcard please.

It was pretty clear, and still incorrect.

This is exactly what I do. But one can wish for range and selection can't they?

Next time you pop to New Zealand or want to pay the prices of sending a package from as far away on the planet as one can be when living in Germany, please let me know.

I couldn't care less about an M&S ready made meal, never had one. But imagine the concept of having the choice to eat one if I so desired. Can you imagine it?! Options!? Oh, wait, of course you do , you live in the UK.