Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#111

Post by astrange » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

jordanmorgan10 wrote: post #4

Unless it's Trader Joes, in which case I leave noticeably happier than I was pre-grocery shopping.

They have an interesting design principle where they only put stores in places where you feel like you're going to hit someone in the parking lot. I suppose it promotes biking to the store.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#112

Post by zargon » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #76

kube-system wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That explains the fruit and vegetables we have in the US in Aldi. I buy produce elsewhere.

Weird, 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.

Not 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.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#113

Post by floren » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #83

thehappypm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand, can you elaborate?

Can you tell me by looking at this photo what section I am in and what else I might find in this aisle? https://i0.wp.com/www.dailycal.org/assets/uploads/2021/09/TJ...

It's the cookies and crackers and frozen food and hot sauce and candy and coffee aisle, of course! Next one over is the soap and pasta and canned goods and spices and dog food and olive oil.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#114

Post by qgin » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

algoatecorn wrote: post #3

With the emergence of dark grocery stores, there will be major opportunity in the space of personalized nutrition. Shoppers will be more connected with a mobile app when it comes to their grocery store experience, and those apps have the potential to steer you toward an optimal diet that saves money and improves health. I strongly believe personalized nutrition and shopping experiences will have major impact on non c…

Anyone trying to personalize their optimal nutrition is already in the top 5% of Americans in regards to healthy eating. We are so, so, so far from even baseline semi-ok diets in the most generalized all-of-humanity guidelines.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#115

Post by azalemeth » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #32

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, me…

I 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!

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#116

Post by havblue » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

From the central point of the article, certainly prices are going up, but a lot of us think of quality dropping when we see the title. I'd be surprised if many people think Whole Foods has maintained its image since being bought out.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#117

Post by justinlloyd » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

lapetitejort wrote: post #21

sbf501 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposite here: I dislike Trader Joe's. I call it "bougie safeway". Trader Joe's is great if you like boxed, prepared food, but it isn't much better for anything else. Their produce is meh and overly wrapped with packaging.

I concur. I can't find anything other than all purpose and wheat flour. No bread flour, or anything more obscure like rye, spelt, etc. Similarly, they sell a single sea salt, alongside tons of trendy mixed salts. Want iodized salt? Go find a big grocery store. I do find tons of snacks and TV dinners, which I enjoy. But if I'm stocking up on essentials, I'd rather go to a big store. And yes, I do find obscure flours a…

On a side note: Purchase a bag of vital wheat gluten, a 2lb/1Kg bag will last a very long time. The difference between AP flour and bread flour is the gluten content. You can bring any regular AP flour up to the highest gluten level that a high gluten bread flour brand like King Arthur will produce. One tablespoon of vital wheat gluten exchanged for one tablespoon of AP flour for every two cups/240 grams/2.4oz of AP flour is a provides a good high gluten ratio. I use it regularly in my bread recipes and pizza dough recipes. I only keep bread flour on the shelf for those days when I am feeling lazy or need a very specific brand of bread flour for one specific recipe.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#118

Post by sureglymop » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

Swiss super markets are pretty great (although expensive). When i visited the US and went to stores like Target and Walmart that was kind of eye opening though... pretty terrible.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#119

Post by justinlloyd » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

koala_man wrote: post #110

lapetitejort wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur. I can't find anything other than all purpose and wheat flour. No bread flour, or anything more obscure like rye, spelt, etc. Similarly, they sell a single sea salt, alongside tons of trendy mixed salts. Want iodized salt? Go find a big grocery store. I do find tons of snacks and TV dinners, which I enjoy. But if I'm stocking up on essentials, I'd rather go to a big store. And yes, I do find obscure flours a…

Someone said that his favorite part of shopping at Trader Joe's is afterwards when you go to a supermarket to buy all the stuff you need. Safeway has everything I'd want from Trader Joe's at this point, and I don't have to do two trips.

TJ's for us is "we need these specific store brand items" or "I need to restock my Blackthorn cider." And unfortunately TJ's has removed three store brand products in the past two years, so the number of reasons to go there is rapidly diminishing for our household.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#120

Post by prennert » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #47

fredley wrote: post #32

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, me…

UK 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

Honestly? 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.