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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

#431

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #306
wikibob wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly strongly disagree. The average produce, meat, cured meat, and seafood in the western EU is vastly superior to the average available in the USA. Bread is especially disgusting in the US compared to EU.

That "average available in the USA" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The USA is larger than Europe, but no one would credibly say that these things are all good across Europe. You can find plenty of terrible bread, meat, and seafood in Europe. To call it "vastly superior" is indefensible on its face. Hence why I referenced the median. It wouldn't make sense to cherry-pick a US city like Seattle, which has amazin…

Bread is way better in Europe than in the US. There's not even an argument to be had here. In most of Europe, you can buy bread on any street corner that is better (not to mention way cheaper) than what you get in expensive specialty bakeries in big American cities. Bread is just not something that most Americans care about, whereas it's an important part of the culture in most of Europe.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#432

Post by wreath »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #412
j7ake wrote: post #351

Comparing grocery stores in USA and Europe (let’s say Italy), one big difference is that USA has a much larger variability in quality of products. In usa, You can buy the cheapest meats to the most expensive. While in italy the lower bound of meat quality is capped: a low end meat in Italy is medium to high end in USA. It makes grocery shopping in Italy much more pleasant than in USA. You go into any grocery store in…

Much of the Mediterranean has amazing produce. The few times I was in a US supermarket, I was amazed at how pricey the food was and not that impressed with the variety of food. I mean, you'd expect to be impressed in e.g, San Francisco by the local produce. For that I had to go to the Farmer's Market, which charges an arm and a leg for nice produce that I would get at a quarter of the price in my local super market.…

> My local supermarket is a Rewe. They are alright. 300 meters from my front door, I treat it like my walk in fridge. Convenience is key for me.

This is the best description of German supermarkets ive seen. It explains the frequent supermarket visits, small quantity purchases and smaller fridges (in most apartments) compared to the US.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#433

Post by CaptainZapp »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #25

> but they do not have the size that European supermarkets have to resist price increases by suppliers. Walmart bankrupted Vlassic by suckering them into a deal where they were stuck selling pickles at a loss. They are infamous for dictating price to their suppliers.

Obligatory link:

https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#434

Post by rightbyte »

tomcam wrote: post #271
rightbyte wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed the same thing with Christmas trees. They lose their "tiny green things" (name?) earlier. Maybe picker/cutter shortages? Like instead of picking the strawberries or cutting trees with 10 people in one week 5 people do it in two weeks? To fill up one truck load.

> "tiny green things" “Pine needles”, as we say in the business

Ty

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#435

Post by Moto7451 »

maccard wrote: post #421
realcertify wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the taste of the veggies, fruits, berries and meat is far worse in supermarkets vs buying directly from growers / butchers.

Disagree here. Seasonal fruit veg and meat is excellent from my local supermarkets.

As someone who has moved around a bit I think it’s very regional. I have had great supermarkets with great produce. CA is pretty easy in this regard. Some states have universally miserable tomatoes and I don’t understand how Trader Joe’s seems to always have the absolute worst peppers. I think it comes down to what will last through hard lines and what grows in the state.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#436

Post by maccard »

jen20 wrote: post #140
tpict wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a British expat, the “yellow onions” you see in US supermarkets are most familiar.

Also as a British expat, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in Bath had all of the types of onion you’d find in the US pre-pandemic - though I haven’t been back since. I’d imagine Brexit may have ruined that.

I was in Sainsbury's in Edinburgh this morning and there were yellow white and red onions, and shallots and spring onions too!

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#437

Post by rightbyte »

itcrowd wrote: post #135
rightbyte wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed the same thing with Christmas trees. They lose their "tiny green things" (name?) earlier. Maybe picker/cutter shortages? Like instead of picking the strawberries or cutting trees with 10 people in one week 5 people do it in two weeks? To fill up one truck load.

I understand people here debating veggies and fruits or meat. But Christmas trees? How often does one buy one? Once a year? Might have been a fluke? Or do you have a compelling reason to relate this to Brexit?

More of a point for the general phenomena.

I don't think it has anything to do with the EU or not. Rather I think there has been some industry wide "efficiency gain" in picking/harvesting/cutting stuff that make the product worse when you buy it.

Obviously the Christmas tree can be a fluke. But so was my mom's and my tree the year earlier. In my childhood they still had like moist resin and smelled alot. But the ones you buy nowadays are dull.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#438

Post by maccard »

petercooper wrote: post #77
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…

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but since Brexit I've noticed the shelf life of fruit and veg has gone through the floor (I suspect the time the produce takes to reach the shelf has increased). For things that have advisory "best by" dates on (e.g. strawberries), where you used to get a date a week in the future, now you need to take care to not buy something with tomorrow's date. In semi-related news, The Independent…

My parents are in Ireland and they're saying the same thing as we are - shelf life for fresh produce has dropped. Anecdotally, we've noticed that all our seasonal produce (e.g. strawberries right now) seems to have a decent 4-5 day shelf life.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#439

Post by bitlax »

lisper wrote: post #418
Gunnerhead wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, with the amount of paywalled sites posted on HN, it's impossible to have a subscription for each one.

You keep using that word, "impossible". I do no think it means what you think it means.

Not impossible; just foolish.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#440

Post by maccard »

usr1106 wrote: post #363
quickthrower2 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>they also get a lot of imported watery taste from Spain etc.

A lot of this is just eating out of season fruit grown in greenhouses and picked early to be transported to be "ripe" on the shelves. Eating fresh Italian tomatoes in February is as poor an experience as eating UK tomatoes in February, but eating them in June is likely to be much better in both cases.

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