Supermarket Visits- Carrefour; Leclerc; Aldi; Lidl; Others
 

Not many tourists make a point of visiting supermarkets in Europe just to see what's going on inside and this passion of mine i know is kind of the dorky equivalent of a train spotter in England, but on my recent sojourn in France and Holland and Germany i did purposefully visit as many different super/hypermarches as possible.

This thread will be my trip report on supermarkets/hyoermarches mainly in France with some supermarket visits in Holland and Germany - i was going by train in the latter two so did not encounter the hypermarches that are mainly on outskirts of cities, on main road arteries.

TBC
To be mentioned

Monop' in Paris
Carrefour Markets in France
Aldi in France and Holland
Lidl in Germany
Carrefour in France
Leclerc in France
Picardie in France
Albert Heijns in Holland

We always make a point of visiting the local supermarkets when traveling. They've become part of our tourist circuit when we're on the road. Amazing values can be found inside!

I usually have my camera handy, and have taken many a picture of the butcher, baker, fishmonger, etc. inside the stores.

I'll never forget one that was so large (had what seemed like dozens of check-outs), the manager wore rollerskates to get from one end to the other!

I look forward to your perspective.

It's not dorky, and it's not at all the "equivalent of a train spotter in England".

Train spotters stand on platform 17 at Crewe station and cross off Deltic numbers they've not previously written down.

Supermarket spotters stand next to the cheese counter at Carrefour when they're doing a sampling on vacherin, then nip over to the wine aisle for the Georges Duboeuf tasting. How can an addiction to free cheese and Burgundy be dorky?

Insanity comes only when you start comparing Aldis operated by Aldi Sud (Bavaria and the UK) with those operated by Aldi Nord (Rhineland, France and Benelux). The checkouts are different.

I've wanted to go into a Picardie but never have yet. Is their food actually tasty? Also, Albert Heijns will be new for us this March. We always stay in flats, so great idea!

Well i have gone into the Picardie store right near my French base and ex-wife resident swears that the frozen foods there - mainly veg she buys - are the best anywhere.

by taste they were good but i could not really notice any great difference from those from the nearby Carrefour hypermarche i bought.

Those tiny French string beans -frozen or not - are a real taste treat.

flanner - i suppose the Aldis in America are run by yet another branch of the Aldi family foundation?

I always visit supermarkets when I visit places. Sometimes I will buy lunch or dinner items but mainly to look around.
I love seeing the different brands or different flavors of some things like potato chips. I am a candy addict so I usually end up buying it where ever I go and supermarkets are less expensive than the specialty shops.

Looking forward to your impressons. We love shopping at the hypermarchés in France, but have never taken the time to do an actual comparison.

Martha- Aldis are especially known for their chocolates - myex-wife, French, worked for a year in Berlin long ago andshe says that Aldi made their reputation in part by their chocolates - not sure about that but when i look at any Aldi it seems that the first thing you pass when entering is what seems an inordinate amount of chocolates and candies.

This is true even of my local Aldi here in the U.S. -first thing boom - piles of chocolates and candies.

My Aldi won't take credit cards but i note the one near my French base did take CC for purchases of 10 euro or more - about the only difference i could note between our Aldi and the French one- except perhpas ours was a bit tidier and a bit more roomy in its aisles.

We camp in France every year while we follow the Tour de France so we have hit the supermarkets all over France. I love just wandering the aisles to see the different ways of displaying products.

I've found wonderful cheap presents for friends at home by buying French specialties at supermarket prices.

One thing i noted in the local Carrefour was the wine section now contains a whole lot of box wines and not swill but DOC type wines - had not seen this much in my last visit two years back.

An interesting development.

Aldi US (and Australia, and Ireland) is operated by Aldi Sud

This thread has got to be the Most Interesting Thing I've ever seen on the WHOLE internet.

Can we have one on 'Starbucks I've been into around the world' next please?

Trainspotters? Pah.

In the interest of supermarket spotters everywhere I should point out that Albert Heijn is not the only chain of supermarkets in the Netherlands, just one of the more expensive ones.

Flanner, don't show your ignorance. Deltics were used on the east coast main line. Crewe is on the west coast.

It's call Aldi Sued, not Sud. Sud is beer broth and a few other things. Sued is "south". Who cares...

The two Aldi brothers had some argument decades ago and split the company between them, one taking the north and the other the south of Germany (so Aldi North and Aldi South). They also split the world between them so that they don't compete against each other (the companies are distinct but cooperate very closely in many things).

Interesting about the Aldi Albrecht family split - which brings up Trader Joe's in the U.S. - i understand owned by the heirs (or partly owned) of one of the founding Aldi brothers - probably the Sud (Sued) branch that has the franchise for Aldi U.S.

I did see Trader Joe branded peanuts in a Berlin Aldi not long ago and that was the first time i suspected any relationship

anyways thanks flanner and hans for the insight. Any insight into the Trader Joe ownership would be appreciated.

Again thanks.

stfc, no not Starbucks! Just as shopping locally adds to the experience, so does sipping a café, pression or rosé at the local watering hole. We advise our apartment renting clients to go local as much as possible so that they bring back memories of actually living in a new and different place, if only for a few days.
I, too, had a great time perusing wines at Carrefour, this one in Burgundy where, of all things, I picked up a nice 2005 Bordeaux for less than euro20.

I always hit grocery stores. I've only been to France three times so my explorations so far have been confined to Monoprix, but it was a very thorough exploration.

As for Starbucks, I was in two in Paris: Blvd. Haussmnn, and Blvd. Montparnasse. I heard french being spoken, the one on Blvd. Montparnasse was packed on a Saturday night, so maybe one "local" is different from another "local", or perhaps the tourists were just very fluent in french.

try Billa in Austria next time.