For about the last fifteen years, Pen and I have been nipping across the channel for the odd day trip to buy products from places like Auchan just outside of Boulogne.
We have also shopped in numerous supermarkets during our many househunting trips, but shopping whilst on holiday - or as often was the case, on a mission, is very different to doing the weekly shopping.
So how do supermarkets in France really differ from their English counterparts?
Size
This is one noticeable aspect of French supermarkets. Sure there are 'Viveco' stores, which are the equivalent to English Spar, Nisa or the corner shop, but the majority of supermarkets are huge compared to most Sainsbury's, Co-op's or other British supermarkets.
Of course, that's not saying that all French supermarkets are bigger than all British ones, but the majority of them probably are. They cover many more lines than most British stores, with white goods, TV, video and telephony sharing space with garden supplies, garden furniture and barbecues. Clothing, bedding, office supplies and kids toys share space with magazines, kitchen utensils, car spares, DIY products and kitchen electricals. Footwear, watches, cameras and computer equipment share space with bicycles, fishing tackle, heaters and of course all that edible or drinkable stuff as well.
In fact, if the store you shop in is not a supermarket, but a hypermarket, then the product lines increase and you could easily spend a day looking through everything there. Sometimes the range is just plain mind-boggling.
They even have cards similar to Tesco's Club Cards or Nectar Cards, but just what you get from these, we have yet to ascertain.
Of course, that's not saying that all French supermarkets are bigger than all British ones, but the majority of them probably are. They cover many more lines than most British stores, with white goods, TV, video and telephony sharing space with garden supplies, garden furniture and barbecues. Clothing, bedding, office supplies and kids toys share space with magazines, kitchen utensils, car spares, DIY products and kitchen electricals. Footwear, watches, cameras and computer equipment share space with bicycles, fishing tackle, heaters and of course all that edible or drinkable stuff as well.
In fact, if the store you shop in is not a supermarket, but a hypermarket, then the product lines increase and you could easily spend a day looking through everything there. Sometimes the range is just plain mind-boggling.
They even have cards similar to Tesco's Club Cards or Nectar Cards, but just what you get from these, we have yet to ascertain.
Quality and price
Although the average French store outdoes almost all British stores in size, in many cases, the quality is also better. Of course, the adage 'you get what you pay for', rings true more often than not for some products, but that doesn't mean that the supermarket's own products are generally to be steered clear of - unlike in England.
As someone who prefers to make my own sauces rather than buying tinned, packet or jars of ready-made bolognese etc, I tend to get through numerous tins of tomatoes and when I was doing the weekly shop before we moved here, I was astonished by the price of them.
There seemed to be two types: expensive (Napolina and any other brand with an Italian-sounding name) or cheap - supermarket's own or some other obscure brand you've never heard of. Now the former are reliable and tasty. They don't contain too many bits of skin or the bits of the tomatoes that don't cook down or taste nice. The others conversely, tend to be watery, tasteless and do little more than add liquid and a slight pinkish tinge to the dish. Of course, one could always by the less expensive brands, fish through, remove anything that is yucky and supplement the lack of flavour with extra purée, which means paying just forty-odd pence for a tin, instead of over £1 for a 400 gramme tin ... er, plus the purée. Here however, you could spend 1€ on a 400 gramme tin of tomatoes, but you'd probably do just as well paying just 60 centimes on a 800 gramme tin, which actually doesn't really need any purée at all.
There are many products that are like that.
We tried a branded version of ravioli - which was just under 25% more than the price of a tin of Heinz Ravioli in England. However the tin we bought here was nearly twice the size of the Heinz variety. Even cheaper was the supermarket's own brand, which was barely distinguishable from the more expensive brand. This was cheaper than a tin of Heinz half its size in England.
There seemed to be two types: expensive (Napolina and any other brand with an Italian-sounding name) or cheap - supermarket's own or some other obscure brand you've never heard of. Now the former are reliable and tasty. They don't contain too many bits of skin or the bits of the tomatoes that don't cook down or taste nice. The others conversely, tend to be watery, tasteless and do little more than add liquid and a slight pinkish tinge to the dish. Of course, one could always by the less expensive brands, fish through, remove anything that is yucky and supplement the lack of flavour with extra purée, which means paying just forty-odd pence for a tin, instead of over £1 for a 400 gramme tin ... er, plus the purée. Here however, you could spend 1€ on a 400 gramme tin of tomatoes, but you'd probably do just as well paying just 60 centimes on a 800 gramme tin, which actually doesn't really need any purée at all.
There are many products that are like that.
We tried a branded version of ravioli - which was just under 25% more than the price of a tin of Heinz Ravioli in England. However the tin we bought here was nearly twice the size of the Heinz variety. Even cheaper was the supermarket's own brand, which was barely distinguishable from the more expensive brand. This was cheaper than a tin of Heinz half its size in England.
Coffee too is cheaper and better than the majority of coffees on sale in British supermarkets. That has meant we've had to stop drinking instant (Quel Dommage!), but we don't pay more than 1€80 for half a kilo of coffee anymore. True, that wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but it suits us. It also means we can drink it as often as we like and brings it in at well under half the price of even Tesco's own - which wasn't a patch on this stuff.
Beware though. Not all own brands are as reliable. In many cases it depends upon which supermarket you're using and in some cases, their own brands should be avoided at all costs. British supermarkets are guilty of this with the ubiquitous Baked Beans a prime example; the sauce being weak and pretty tasteless and the beans often hard and something akin to chewing cardboard.
One shop that for us turned out to be like that and is a lot like Asda was in England. Both advertise a lot about how inexpensive they are, yet we have found the reverse to be true. Yes, you can buy products that are less expensive than named brands, but then you may not want to eat them. An example would be buying Asda's own Ginger Beer that didn't taste remotely like Ginger Beer at all and had to be thrown away. We have fallen victim here to buying non-branded stuff and finding the same to be true.
One shop that for us turned out to be like that and is a lot like Asda was in England. Both advertise a lot about how inexpensive they are, yet we have found the reverse to be true. Yes, you can buy products that are less expensive than named brands, but then you may not want to eat them. An example would be buying Asda's own Ginger Beer that didn't taste remotely like Ginger Beer at all and had to be thrown away. We have fallen victim here to buying non-branded stuff and finding the same to be true.
Like I said, not everything's better, but the majority of products we buy are. The quality of what the average French person - and now us - puts in their stomach is of far better quality than the equivalent palmed off on the English in their supermarkets.
Meat products however are a different kettle of fish. If you want good quality pâté, you have to pay for it and you will find that you will pay more for many forms of meat than you might in England. You won't find many places selling three pound chickens at an average of £3, but then, you probably won't have nightmares on how they're kept either. Pork products won't have 15% water and other additives to increase their shelf life and sausages won't be 80% rusk and 20% fat.Having said that though, once you start to appreciate the quality of the food you're eating, going back to bland, nuked, hormone-infested British food will be difficult and paying more than 60 centimes for a 200 gramme packet of crisps instead of fifty or sixty pence for a 35 gramme packet will I'm sure, be something you're going to be unwilling to do.
British products
For those of you who absolutely cannot live without your Marmite, Digestives, Hob-Nobs or other British products, many of the supermarkets we've been to have a section especially for you - at a price. Expect to pay several times the price you'd pay at home for all those mentioned above.
However, before you go off at the deep end about the prices , try what they do have as alternatives. We can both thoroughly recommend the biscuits - especially Génoises Fourrées that are the French equivalent of Jaffa cakes. To our minds, the French versions are ten times better and probably only a fraction of the price.
You'll no doubt miss classic English - or should that be Danish? - bacon, as this is not something the French do ... at least, it's not as widely available as it is elsewhere. They do use belly pork - 'poitrine' and if you ask a butcher to slice this thinly, you can have your bacon, but it's not available everywhere and probably wouldn't be as cheap as you'd find it in England.
Bread is probably one of those things people recognise from France. Everyone who's ever been on a day trip with the school will remember trying to get their 'baguettes' back home without either breaking them and probably failing miserably. However, as we have discovered, what the British call baguettes are actually 'pain'. Yup, you've got it, plain, simple bread! Baguettes are actually smaller and would probably be called 'batons' in England.
You can get sliced, square-shaped loaves, the like of which British people like to slip into their toasters, but take it from us, the pain the French make, knocks the socks off that.
Most of all, I would urge people visiting France to try the food. We often wonder why people would go to a foreign place only to eat and drink the same stuff they would at home, but they do. It's just an opinion, but I feel they're missing out on an awful lot.
You'll no doubt miss classic English - or should that be Danish? - bacon, as this is not something the French do ... at least, it's not as widely available as it is elsewhere. They do use belly pork - 'poitrine' and if you ask a butcher to slice this thinly, you can have your bacon, but it's not available everywhere and probably wouldn't be as cheap as you'd find it in England.
Bread is probably one of those things people recognise from France. Everyone who's ever been on a day trip with the school will remember trying to get their 'baguettes' back home without either breaking them and probably failing miserably. However, as we have discovered, what the British call baguettes are actually 'pain'. Yup, you've got it, plain, simple bread! Baguettes are actually smaller and would probably be called 'batons' in England.
You can get sliced, square-shaped loaves, the like of which British people like to slip into their toasters, but take it from us, the pain the French make, knocks the socks off that.
Most of all, I would urge people visiting France to try the food. We often wonder why people would go to a foreign place only to eat and drink the same stuff they would at home, but they do. It's just an opinion, but I feel they're missing out on an awful lot.
The costs
Shopping in England was all about keeping the costs down as far as possible and in so doing, a large proportion of what we ate was possibly not as healthy as we'd have liked. Here it's more about balance. We're still somewhat unsettled and haven't fallen into a particular routine as yet, so the costs are somewhat higher. This is partly due to the fact that there doesn't seem to be as much convenience food here and we're viewing that as a good thing.
Having said that, what we are buying is not that much more costly than we were buying before we moved here.
We're adopting a more French way of eating, where meat - which whilst better quality, is more expensive here - is not necessarily the most important part of the meal and therefore are eating a lot more healthily compared to our diets in England. With fresh vegetables and fruit having more flavour than what is generally available in British supermarkets, it's very easy to make dishes with a lot less meat that are interesting, tasty and filling.
I would have to say that once we've completely settled here, our food costs will level out. Our change of diet has meant that whilst the cost of food here is slightly higher than we've been used to, it's a small price to pay for the increased quality and the fact that what we're eating is generally better for us.
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