Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 530 posts

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#191

Post by MonaroVXR »

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

How 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.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#192

Post by mgraczyk »

It would be hard for me to believe any generalizations about grocery stores in the US. In San Francisco where I live, there are ~5 grocery stores within walking distance that span an order of magnitude in price and markup. Some items are only available at the higher end stores, and items that overlap are sold for up to 10x the price at the smaller, more expensive stores.

For example I can get a pint of heavy cream for ~$2 at the cheap store, or I can get an organic fancy one for $15 at Whole Foods. I can also get a normal brand name (Horizon) for either $3 or $6, depending on where I buy it. Finally, Safeway has a unique ultra-pasteurized product that is way better for me (lasts for months) for ~$4. Very difficult to make any generalizations about service or value.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#193

Post by [deleted] »

waaveshine wrote: post #98
assttoasstmgr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try ringing the bell next time the lines are slow. That'll get their attention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbafXjG9ROA I'll also add their slowness is partly due to their clientele (moreso that standard stores) bringing their filthy reusable grocery sacks, which throw off the flow of the line.

The staff use these to communicate. There’s no intercoms so this is how they know when to open more registers, come to the front of the store, etc. Don’t ring the bells, they will not appreciate it. Source: past TJs employee

[deleted]

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#194

Post by MonaroVXR »

prennert wrote: post #120
bowsamic wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 numbe…

Isn't discount supermarket a perception. I mean they are all supermarkets.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#195

Post by tormeh »

Hellion wrote: post #175
DubiousPusher wrote: post #172

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…

Why fuck raisins? Earnest question, I always just assumed taking a lot of the moisture out of a grape was bad enough for flavor

Probably sugar

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#196

Post by triceratops »

mattl wrote: post #81
CameronNemo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed why Trader Joe's could never be my entire grocery shopping experience. Even staples like dry black beans are unavailable. God forbid you want to bake something... They have a couple interesting products that I can't get elsewhere, and they don't have lots of products that I can get at literally any other grocery store.

What are you using the dried black beans for that a can won’t suffice?

They're cheaper, take up less space, no processed crap from all the goo in the can, you can cook them to whatever firmness you want...should I keep going?

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#197

Post by tonymet »

consumers bear some responsibility for demanding low quality convenient instant prep food. most of the shelf space is wasted on junk food . if consumers cooked even simple meals, then market would be 2/3 smaller . an entire isle for breakfast cereal, one for cookies, and half an isle for canned beans ? that means everything had to cost 10x as much .

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#199

Post by dhosek »

ssully wrote: post #52
thehappypm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand, can you elaborate?

If you go there when it's busy, the checkout lines can get pretty large (they don't have dedicated baggers) and crowd parts of the store. With that said, I've noticed a similar trend at bigger stores by me lately as they added more self-checkout lines.

I've generally found that checkout times at TJs are much less than the local supers.

Price- and quality-wise they totally win on cheese and pasta by a huge margin. Supermarket cheese is generally pretty awful (the only cheeses we get at the super are Mexican cheeses that TJs doesn't stock. I’ve occasionally bought, say cheddar at the super and it’s awful and costs more than TJs).

The big thing for me for the last two years is that the clientele and staff at my local TJs have done a much better job of taking Covid seriously than the same at Whole Foods¹ or any standard super.

⸻

1. I was in Whole Foods earlier today and was rather appalled to see a sign saying that customers are welcome [italics mine] to shop without a mask regardless of vaccination status. This while local Covid rates are on the rise. It seemed like they were encouraging people to go maskless.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#200

Post by bluedino »

kube-system wrote: post #66
bowsamic wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Also 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.

Post reply on HN