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Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

economist.com

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Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#361

Post by dgellow »

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

What 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.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#362

Post by adam-a »

s5300 wrote: post #343
rejor121 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And water, which is becoming more and more scarce

Carve out a giant semi-cone into the oceanside, acting as a static water inlet/basin. Line surface area of cone w/heavy mirror array. Desalinate thru concentrated sunbeams. Or something like that.

They are building giant solar desalinators in Saudi Arabia so this is maybe not far from the truth. https://wired.me/science/environment/desalination-solar-dome...

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#363

Post by usr1106 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #178
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…

What 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.

My 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.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#364

Post by baisq »

cbhl wrote: post #319
jandrewrogers wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American grocery stores have become absolutely amazing in my lifetime, from a pretty poor start (also growing up in the rural west). The diversity of fresh, high quality foods available most of the year is astonishing. And that is just your average suburban supermarket. Bigger cities have an incredible range of boutique food purveyors to meet the demands of every obscure desire or requirement. This is linked back int…

"Appreciate" is, perhaps, not the right word. Maybe "worry"? Younger generations grew up on a message of climate change and it can be disconcerting to walk into a grocery store and find the entire produce department to be a geography lesson. This from Peru, that from Mexico, the other from Alaska, all flown and trucked in on a cold chain straight from some far-away monoculture farm. If anything I suspect the increase…

There are some who are specialised in finding any possible excuse to bring up global warming in every thread.

Can't you see that the majority of people don't care? Leave us alone already.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#365

Post by runeks »

tthun wrote: post #72

I am not sure how this article got past any editorial checks. First they state prices are too low in the US to make any profit, then on the next paragraph goes on to talk about “yet” Americans getting served less. Finally reverting back complaining Americans are not getting a good deal. author also use gross profit of Walmart, which sells everything from salt to guns, as a measure of profitability for “grocery” store…

> author also use gross profit of Walmart, which sells everything from salt to guns, as a measure of profitability for “grocery” stores.

The article has an entire paragraph dedicated to this:

> Walmart’s shops are enormous, selling plenty besides groceries. Tesco operates over 4,000 shops, the bulk of which are its smallest. Walmart has only 4,700 shops in total, despite serving a population about five times larger. On average, its supermarkets are ten times larger by floor space than Tesco’s. Bigger stores increase consumer choice. A Walmart supercentre might stock 140,000 different items, compared with just 40,000 at Tesco’s biggest branches. But it also means they may be wasting a lot of space by stocking products that do not sell, adding to costs. American supermarkets sell far less per square foot of shop space than British supermarkets, notes Bryan Roberts, a consultant based in London.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#366

Post by mupuff1234 »

rightbyte wrote: post #357
klodolph wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the sentiment about frozen food being superior is on the mark although the exact argument isn’t correct. Frozen produce is harvested at peak, frozen nearby, and then transported. The texture suffers, but in other respects this is far superior to the “fresh” produce you get, which has to survive transportation at room temperature. Whether you would prefer frozen depends on what you are getting and how you prepare…

> far superior to the “fresh” produce you get, which has to survive transportation at room temperature Depends on the distance to transport and water content though. I have never eaten frozen pinneapple, but I guess it would be awful?

Not awful at all. Actually makes for a great summer popsicle.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#367

Post by mupuff1234 »

w-ll wrote: post #286
ramraj07 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d trust a good can of tomatoes before I touch the borderline unappealing off season strawberries they have in those markets. Happy that you’re trying not to judge but looks like you still have a ways to go before getting off a high horse. As oogway says, “one often meets their destiny on their path to avoid it.” When I remember the solid research showing people taking multivitamins die faster I keep thinking what m…

I feel the same with with orange juice FROM concentrate vs the shelf stable stuff, everyone calls me crazy for it.

I like eating the concentrated stuff semi-frozen, tastes better than most sorbets imo.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#368

Post by asdff »

SoftTalker wrote: post #165
photochemsyn wrote: post #99

Farmer's markets are the way to go for produce if you have farms in your area. Some are overpriced and upscale, some are cheaper than your local chain grocery store. You can also buy grains/beans in bulk at lower prices, often direct from farmer's coops, and have it shipped to your door. Get a pressure cooker for beans, a rice cooker, save on the gas prices as they're electric, and use an induction electric stove. If…

I have never seen a cheap farmers market. Around here they seem to be exclusively for and patronized by wealthy older people, who don't blink at paying $7 for a head of lettuce.

The legit ones are cheap. I buy avocados for 50 cents a piece at mine. I think they are grown in ventura county.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#369

Post by hef19898 »

asiachick wrote: post #310
jandrewrogers wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this generalizes, it really depends on where you live in the US. I work in Europe and know many US expats there, so this is something we talk about. The consensus has been that the quality and diversity of fresh foods in the US these days is frequently superior in many categories at the median, though notably worse in others. The paucity of good produce is noticeable everywhere, for example, a fraction…

You're right, I forgot about the cheese shops, because in France I wouldn't have to go out of my way to find good cheese. But, "Bread is indistinguishable"? WAT? Really? I guess we have different tastes. Other than some sourdough there is no bread I've had that I like in SF. That definitely varies by country in Europe. Hard to find good bread in Germany and some of those northern countries have their interesting brea…

>> Hard to find good bread in Germany

Well, that can o ly be because our bakers are opening shop in the UK and tge US then. Arguably bread quality decreased considerably in Germany so. Mostly due to the fact that big chains dominate the bakery market. Same goes for local butcher shops. German bread still beats, say, Italian bread on average. And don't get me started on what passes as bread in the UK or Scandinavia, even if those countries improved a lot.

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