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

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#341

Post by jollybean » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:48 AM UTC

teh_klev wrote: post #246

sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of it is that UK standards are lower when it comes to food, yes. I know this might be offensive, but I think there's some truth to it. The reason I think there's truth to it is that it works in the opposite direction too. Standards for food are higher in Italy than in Portugal and guess what? Their grocery stores are better than the Portuguese ones. Comparing meat specifically in Portugal vs UK, it's gen…

> I think part of it is that UK standards are lower when it comes to food This is patent nonsense. Current UK food standards for the moment are aligned with EU standards despite Brexit. > Comparing meat specifically in Portugal vs UK, it's generally awful in the UK, but I've never heard anyone there complaining about it. Therefore, the standards must be lower, even if by simple virtue of people not knowing any better…

You have misunderstood the comment.

The food selection in Italy, in most areas, is unmatched anywhere else.

It's because of what Italians demand.

If UK citizens really wanted better food, it would appear.

'Health and Safety' standards and even 'grade certifications' etc. have nothing to do with it.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#342

Post by bowsamic » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

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…

Rewe and EDEKA aren’t bad but are far more expensive than UK supermarkets and still have less selection. The quality is higher though. Lidl is about the same but far more expensive. Aldi Nord is far worse than Aldi Süd which is in the UK

Btw I would definitely say that most Germans consider Rewe to be the posh equivalent

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#343

Post by s5300 » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

rejor121 wrote: post #318

s5300 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically - California needs nuke energy, & fast. Easiest thing that should happen but never will. Can’t wait to see how things turn out, that being said.

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.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#344

Post by klodolph » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #86

ajcp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article was referencing regional grocers. However, and to your point, Albertsons and Safeway may be "national" brands but Albertsons, Inc. (which is Albertsons/Safeway) actually has 22 "regional" banners that are all serviced by a single corporation, which I don't think this article actually takes into account.

I discovered a few years back when visiting OH, SoCal, and VT that my Safeway card works at Vons, Acme, and Shaw's.... and that the store layouts and much of the contents are basically identical as well.

The layouts are extremely purposeful. There are books written about how to lay out grocery stores. They do the same kind of A/B testing on store layouts that Amazon does on the “buy it now” button. It’s no accident that there are three different places in the grocery store to buy cheese, or that produce is at the front of the store and milk at the back, or that candy is next to the register and potato chips are on the end caps.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#345

Post by bowsamic » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:52 AM UTC

MonaroVXR wrote: post #191

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

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.

Lidl is about the same but far more expensive. Aldi Nord is far worse than Aldi Süd which is in the UK

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

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Post by bowsamic » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:53 AM UTC

Sytten wrote: post #206

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

Lived in Denmark for a while, it was worst than anything I experienced in Germany and much more expensive. Though I found smaller shops, asian and middle eastern run with great vegetables and tofu (hard to find for some reason). And this was in Copenhagen mind you.

I have also heard this. It’s just so variable depending on local expectation and country

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

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Post by m_mueller » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

noirbot wrote: post #239

m_mueller wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I think generally means you have to be more savy on wha to buy. But tbf. specifically regarding bread, coming from German speaking region, I could never get happy in my (limited) US experience. The standard there seems to be adding sugar and that just straight up ruins bread for me.

That's all going to depend on where you are. Bread seems like a big division - shelf-stable bread is a lot less of a thing in Europe, likely because of a longer tradition of bakers. If you're in a major US city though, I've never had an issue finding French/German style breads, and usually at a normal grocer, if not at a specialty baker.

It still matters what is the standard, even if you can find alternatives. It admittedly may matter more to a traveler who goes through airports and middle class hotels though, than to people living there.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#348

Post by seoaeu » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 7:01 AM UTC

bufordtwain wrote: post #223

istorical wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think the like lowest end bread at an Italian grocery store is going to be way better than the lowest end "bread" at an American grocery store, but the difference is at the American store there is literally (I shit you not) 50-100 varieties of bread and a lot of them are decent (actually by a lot I mean like 4-10).

In my experience almost none of the US supermarket breads are decent. They almost all have added sugar and don't taste good compared to UK/French/Italian bread. There is one brand called "The Rustic oven" that has come out recently that has no added sugar and isn't bad, but that's the exception.

That sounds like mostly just catering to local tastes

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

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Post by dntrkv » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 7:02 AM UTC

js2 wrote: post #305

w-ll wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m from Florida. You’re crazy. Both are equally bad. If you want fresh orange juice, buy Florida oranges and squeeze the juice yourself. They aren’t very good for eating though. For that you want California navels. (Florida’s true delicacies are the keylime and the stone crab. I’ve never gotten a keylime in a grocery store that comes close to what grows on the trees in the state. And stone crab you’ll never find in…

Plenty of stores offer freshly squeezed orange juice nowadays. Some have the machine that will do it right in front of you.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

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Post by symlinkk » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 7:05 AM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #295

WalterBright wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly grind up a pile of vegetables in the vitamix and drink the result. Prep time is 5 minutes. Cleanup is 1 minute. I'm not really buying the "no time to eat healthy" thing.

The time involved in living healthy is not in the time it actually takes to make a meal (which is trivial, and can easily take less time than the round-trip to a fast food outlet.) The real time it takes is in the time you need to learn a bunch of skills that make that possible. In an ideal world you learnt those skills at your mother's knee, but we are now 3 generations into "fast food" so it's probable that was mis…

Why don’t we just teach that in schools? Instead of learning that the interior angles of triangles add up to 180 degrees maybe we could learn to cook healthy meals for ourselves?