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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

#31

Post by rilezg »

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…

Grocery stores are incentivized to sell as much food as possible, which does not align with keeping their customers as healthy as possible.

But, assuming altruistic grocers, it would be interesting to see how they decide what food to steer people towards. Would I have to share my medical records and height/weight/exercise routine or would they personalize based on something else?

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#32

Post by fredley »

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, meat and a fish counters and a wide variety of produce, all labelled clearly by variety name. It put my local large supermarket to shame. The prices were cheaper too.

I find this every time I shop on the continent. Are our standards that much lower? Is it just Brexit? I yearn for a European supermarket experience in the UK.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#34

Post by kube-system »

saperyton wrote: post #11
jordanmorgan10 wrote: post #4

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

I love Trader Joe's, but checkout there just takes too long. I want to grab products and leave, and not to spend 15-30 minutes on line.

Y'all must go at peak times or something, I've never waited at the checkout at my TJs

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#35

Post by thepasswordis »

jordanmorgan10 wrote: post #4

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

Trader joes is basically just a larger version of the "grocery" aisle at a drug store wrapped up in some nice marketing. Hard pass.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#36

Post by zeroonetwothree »

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…

But that's exactly why TJs is cheaper. You gain price and sacrifice variety.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#37

Post by reducesuffering »

mattl wrote: post #10
tuckerpo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd attribute that to the selection of choices for any individual item being very low there. There aren't 48 brands of meatballs to choose from.

They also do not want self checkouts, coupons, apps, etc.

> coupons, apps

Good? Apps are just extra margin places like Safeway tack on. Coupons are just taking things from fat margin to TJ-level margin.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#38

Post by tomjakubowski »

sbf501 wrote: post #9
jordanmorgan10 wrote: post #4

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

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.

TJ's processed/frozen stuff is often better, and always way cheaper, than either the name brands or supermarket generic brands. So I get those things at TJ's (sometimes along with stuff like milk and eggs), and buy grains, produce, meat and everything else from Ralphs.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#39

Post by zeroonetwothree »

tengbretson wrote: post #17
jordanmorgan10 wrote: post #4

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

Their food is whatever, but their long, slow checkout lines that obstruct other shoppers and generally customer-hostile layout often pushes me to the border of rage. The only thing that keeps me level are those dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

I find their checkout to be the fastest of any store I go to, but I suppose it probably depends on the location.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#40

Post by fnordpiglet »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #5
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…

What's a dark grocery store?

Sells only dark matter food.
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