I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.)
We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting.
We got produce direct from growers, at various markets and from our garden. I would get strawberries once a year when they were plentiful enough to be affordable in a pallete from a local bulk market.
Baked goods were what you got from home, otherwise you could have generic branded spongelike bread loaf.
American supermarkets blow my mind. I can get strawberries, blackberries and blueberries year round. There is a butcher in the store selling fresh high quality meats. There is a bakery producing French roundloaves, donuts and cookies, most produced in the last 24-48 hours.
It's incredible. And yet, when I unload my cart of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and baked goods it doesn't look like the carts around mine. They are full of canned foods, frozen foods, boxed foods, etc. I'm not judging. You can't beat a frozen pizza for satisfaction/effort, especially when you weren't expecting to feed anyone. But I can never get over the variety in my local produce section.
When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins. (Fuck raisins.) You can make a great meal fast with few ingredients. If you take the time to have brown sauce or demi glace on hand.
Even with the aid of the supermarket and all it can provide, good food takes time. And that requires sacrifice. One parent has to come home after 8 hours working and cook. The kids can't do extracurriculars every week of the night. If you want to enjoy food culture, both cars have to be in the driveway a couple nights a week. And IMO that's why class and America's work culture have a lot more to do with our poor food culture than our grocery stores.
American grocery stores have become absolutely amazing in my lifetime, from a pretty poor start (also growing up in the rural west). The diversity of fresh, high quality foods available most of the year is astonishing. And that is just your average suburban supermarket. Bigger cities have an incredible range of boutique food purveyors to meet the demands of every obscure desire or requirement. This is linked back into the agricultural supply chain where farmers will produce bespoke agricultural goods for rare and unusual needs on demand.
The creation of a free trade zone for agriculture from the Arctic to the Antarctic along the American side of the Pacific Rim is a significant contributor. Everything is in season somewhere. I don't know if younger generations appreciate the magnitude of the change in American food markets.
One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-fat fad (they just increased sugar content to maintain mouthfeel). Ask any Gen Xer and they'll regale you with nightmares of the dominance of oat bran in 80s cuisine. On the one hand, you get a muffin. On the other hand, it tastes like cardboard flavored with sugar and cinnamon.
Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively.
Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. They also don't appreciate frozen vegetables, which are just as healthy as the fresh stuff, even if it might not taste quite as good some of the time.
One of the things that the Food Network did a HUGE disservice to people is that a couple of entire generations (Xers and Millennials) were convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. There was maybe one show on that entire network with a host who would use kits and flavor packets and other items, and she was regularly panned by the audience for not being "authentic" enough.
As a child of immigrants (who were farmers/rural prior to coming to America) sit-down dinner with family was tantamount if you were eating at home that day.
I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense.
I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore.
I'm sure supermarkets now are better than what you grew up with in Montana but I have the opposite experience. I'm in SF, we supposedly have good produce, farmer's markets, and big supermarkets with lots of selection. But they pale in comparison to what I'm used to from Japan and France.
The bread here in SF is horrid and that includes that massively over rated Tartine, not to mention how bad the baked products are at most supermarkets. They're shovelware baked goods. The produce selection is 1/3rd what it is in France and much of it is tasteless compared to the good stuff you'd find in Japan or France. There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. !/10th the selection of pâté. But hey, we get fresh tortillas so you win some you lose some. Even the milk here is off. Our beer selection is 1/50th of Belgium and zero of the sweet ones. Our cider selection is 1/5th of the UK's.
It's all relative. If you were at a 1 and entered a 5 then it seems like a huge step up. But if you then experienced a 10, that 5 no longer seems so great.
For what it’s worth I grew up with super markets and it still blows my mind. Has since I was a kid, how do I have strawberries in winter!?
It’s also what has enabled us to diversify. Easy to obtain any food, any time, without much meal prep.
I personally am still looking to grow, store and remain self-sufficiently. But it’s entirely a life style choice; built out of my fear for the further.
Ask yourself, can the next generation build supermarkets? I don’t know if they could. It’s an amazing work logistics. Further, it requires California and growing food in desert. It also requires an abundance of energy for transport AND international trade. All of which is under tremendous pressure.
Very well said. It doesn't sound like I grew up as rural as you, but I can remember going to small grocery stores growing up that functioned in the same way you mentioned. People around me often had to travel to different cities to find the food they needed (and it's actually going back in that direction due to poverty). I would not be surprised if a large number of people got a good portion of their food from hunting today.
I live near several supermarkets now and they have literally everything, all the time. But it's like you said, it takes time to cook good food. In addition, when you grow up having so much access to quick meals (including restaurant options), you grow up never learning how to actually cook and I think it takes you a lot longer than it would have otherwise. It seems to me nobody knows how to cook anymore because it's barely necessary.
I’d trust a good can of tomatoes before I touch the borderline unappealing off season strawberries they have in those markets. Happy that you’re trying not to judge but looks like you still have a ways to go before getting off a high horse. As oogway says, “one often meets their destiny on their path to avoid it.” When I remember the solid research showing people taking multivitamins die faster I keep thinking what might be in store for people who swear organic food will make them live longer.
Like your railing on frozen food. You realize frozen food is far fresher and less likely to have “chemicals” or whatever is your choice enemy right?
I grew up in Brooklyn and supermarkets didn't really become a thing here until the 2000s. Like there was Key Food, but that felt more like a general store. There was a Waldbaum in the area but it was pretty inconvenient to get to.
Instead we had fruit stands selling produce, a bakery, a butcher, fishmonger selling seafood. And this isn't mentioning all the ethnic food stores. All of this was on two or three short blocks. The first time I saw a supermarket was when we went to New Jersey. It was a Wegmans and I think what was amazing to me was just how much stuff a single place could have.
I think ultimately it does come down to convenience. I think it's easier than ever to have decent meal at home. You don't even have to peel your own carrots or tear your own lettuce anymore. Sure something with more complexity might take time, but that's better for a weekend.
There is a bakery producing French roundloaves, donuts and cookies, most produced in the last 24-48 hours.
Bread in most instore supermarket bakeries is a matter of cooking frozen dough that arrived on a truck rather than making anything from scratch. What you buy was produced a lot more than 48 hours ago.
> when I unload my cart of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and baked goods it doesn't look like the carts around mine. They are full of canned foods, frozen foods, boxed foods, etc.
Canned, frozen, and boxed foods offer a much higher "calorie/dollar" ratio. Berries, in particular, are wildly expensive on this metric even in-season.
A family with 3 kids, 2 cars, and median earnings (one part-time, since working to pay for childcare often makes no financial sense) literally cannot afford to subsist primarily on "meat, cheese, and fresh produce".
"When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins."
This really depends on the cuisine. I've really been getting in to Indian food recently and the recipes in it are nothing like what you're describing.
Relatedly, one of my main complaints against American supermarkets is that they all seem to be catering towards makings Italian food. Some have "ethnic" food sections, but those tend to be tiny and mostly filled with Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food... And even there have nowhere near the selection of a grocery store specializing in that cuisine.
American supermarkets also tend to be full of meat dishes, with few selections (outside the fresh fruit/vegetable isles) for vegetarians... Though that's been getting a little better in recent years in an some parts of the country.
There is somewhat of a middle ground. My cart looks very close to yours but I really don’t want to spend the 60 to 90 minutes most good meals take more than once or twice a week.
However you can make lots of good food ahead of time and freeze it. I spend a few hours every Sunday and it makes for quick 30 minute no effort meals for about two weeks.
Well said. It's about priorities. My wife and I have found we are more culturally aligned with France and Italy. Focusing in enjoying the simple things in life, like a meal made from a few simple, delicious high quality ingredients.
Farmer's markets are the way to go for produce if you have farms in your area. Some are overpriced and upscale, some are cheaper than your local chain grocery store. You can also buy grains/beans in bulk at lower prices, often direct from farmer's coops, and have it shipped to your door. Get a pressure cooker for beans, a rice cooker, save on the gas prices as they're electric, and use an induction electric stove. If you want meat, well, that's going to get more expensive. Eating less meat, but higher-quality, is going to be healthier anyway (boycott the factory farms, grass-fed beef is probably best).
However, you have to learn to cook. This is a barrier for some people. To me cooking is relaxing and I've got a lot of low-effort high-speed methods, but then I have a background as a wet lab researcher and that's about 100X as painstaking, where you're tracking every single thing you do in a lab notebook, mixing up solutions with precisely measured masses and volumes, adjusting pHs, running timers and working in this high-pressure environment where one screwup can waste a whole day's work if not a whole month's. Cooking in comparison, I don't use recipes, it's just pure fun. Get a decent collection of spices, that's important. Learn to clean as you go, and you can take most raw ingredients and go right to a great meal in half an hour.
If you've never done much cooking, a course isn't a bad idea. Indian cooking classes are great for teaching you how to cook a wide variety of grains/beans/veggies. Baking is more of a hassle as you have to measure stuff out and be more careful with temps and times, and tends to take a bit longer, but has the benefit of being able to make larger dishes for more people in one shot.
I have never seen a cheap farmers market. Around here they seem to be exclusively for and patronized by wealthy older people, who don't blink at paying $7 for a head of lettuce.
I cook the same meal almost everyday. I have precooked a pot of white rice (trying to use brown) that sits in the fridge. I start cooking a chicken quarter or two and then microwave some mixed frozen vegetables (corn, green beans, carrots). Then I put some of the rice on top of that, microwave again, then the chicken is done (add some seasoning) and eat with salt. I listen to a podcast while cooking.
Otherwise I eat junk food (BK/TB/McDs or ramen shop). I do have a binge eating problem (bored or way to fight brain dead). But I can also fast eg. eat a meal a day for weeks to drop 10s of lbs. It's not easy to keep it consistent. Also I am more productive if I don't eat the entire day (except caffeine/water), eating induces tiredness.
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.
I noticed that things got substantially worse in my local shops after Brexit. However, I don't think it's entirely that, or directly at least: if you find a "real" greengrocers (at a market stall or otherwise), you'll find a very much larger range of interesting veg than you normally see. I think that the big shops like standardising on things that sell very well, and fruit and veg are sort of the worst of worlds for them – readily perishable, wide range but low cost and low margins, and fussy customers who (famously) will leave "wonky" cucumbers on the shelves at the end of the day. The economic shit-show of the last few years has made supermarkets very price conscious and the first thing they can cut that actually has a meaningful impact on their bottom line, but is unlikely to be noticed, is their range of fresh goods.
If you're interested, in Denmark it's amazing to see the cultural differences – lots of lovely vegetables but with many different types of carrots, swede and turnips!
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 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.
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.
One benefit of all the working from home has been a few commuter towns around me have revived their high streets.
E.g. i have two awesome butchers nearby, the fruit and veg shop is way better than 5 years ago in terms of selection - quality and price was always good there but selection is fantastic now. I’ve got lots of random little shops nearby now, e.g. a coffee roaster, a social food thingy etc etc
5 years ago this town mostly had just hairdressers on the Main Street.
I have lived, worked, and paid taxes in 5 countries. And it was obvious to me that the food standards in England (and the US) was lower than most European countries. Sorry if that offends but I believe this to be true based on personal experience living there.
Honestly I miss U.K. supermarkets now I live in the US. (I moved before Brexit so things are probably much worse there now.)
Tesco somehow always managed to have what I needed but my local Safeway in SF frequently has empty shelves (predating the pandemic.) And unless you go to Trader Joe’s (which is missing a bunch of other stuff) there’re no nice freshly preprepared meals available.
It would be hard for me to believe any generalizations about grocery stores in the US. In San Francisco where I live, there are ~5 grocery stores within walking distance that span an order of magnitude in price and markup. Some items are only available at the higher end stores, and items that overlap are sold for up to 10x the price at the smaller, more expensive stores.
For example I can get a pint of heavy cream for ~$2 at the cheap store, or I can get an organic fancy one for $15 at Whole Foods. I can also get a normal brand name (Horizon) for either $3 or $6, depending on where I buy it. Finally, Safeway has a unique ultra-pasteurized product that is way better for me (lasts for months) for ~$4. Very difficult to make any generalizations about service or value.
I am not sure how this article got past any editorial checks. First they state prices are too low in the US to make any profit, then on the next paragraph goes on to talk about “yet” Americans getting served less. Finally reverting back complaining Americans are not getting a good deal.
author also use gross profit of Walmart, which sells everything from salt to guns, as a measure of profitability for “grocery” stores.
What are the “peddling” here - dark store as a concept ?
Something about comparing the US to other rich nations rubs me the wrong way when, in my opinion, servicing a country as large as the US is very different from servicing a small island like the UK. The post talks about difference in margins and regional squeezing, etc. However, how much of the cost difference comes from transporting the goods? The post also mentions how large stores are, and how large of a selection there is, in US stores. That seems like it'd drive up the cost, but I don't hear Americans complaining about too many options. Honestly, I think it's an achievement that an American can eat as healthy for the same price as the French, they are very different countries geographically!
> 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.
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 Italy and you are assured that you will get good quality products no matter what price range you pay.
Anecdotal I guess but I’ve visited 15-20 countries across Europe and Asia in the last ~10 years and the supermarkets were largely not great relative to your average American Kroger.
Australia has the best supermarkets in the world, hands down. Why? Because we grow and produce almost all of our fresh produce, dairy, meat, and seafood. There are some exceptions for seasonal things, but the Australian climate allows for almost everything we eat to be grown here.
The solution to this problem in the US and the UK is less globalism, not more.
I can’t really agree with most of the article. I think that while there is some price gouging, mostly food price increases are simply an effect of inflation.
I like the generality of super markets. I like to cook so I buy whole grains/rice, lots of fresh produce, a variety of foreign/exotic spices and prepared sauces, and occasional free range/no feed lot beef. On the other hand, I know people who don’t have as much free time as I have and they can get frozen/canned, etc. food that is fast to prepare. Everyone gets what they want or need.
That said, my wife and I also frequent the weekly farmers’ market, and I go to a tiny store where I see local producers unloading locally grown produce from their pickup trucks.
I wonder if a byproduct of inflation might be more people cooking healthier meals from bulk/cheaper staples.
I guess people have forgotten the world before supermarkets (the replacement for traditional 'grocery stores'). You could not buy a pineapple or a banana or an orange. It was impossible. What made it possible were the literal overthrow of governments by corporations that acted like pirates with a monopoly on a given crop, in combination with technical and logistical revolutions.
It's also amazing to see supermarkets getting the blame. Food prices are almost entirely based on trade deals and exploitation by food producers. Supermarkets are just the last mile in a long chain that includes not just food producers and transporters and sellers, but competing markets with politically-influenced tariffs and government subsidies. The price you pay for food has almost nothing to do with the supermarket, unless said supermarket has such a stranglehold on its markets that it can dictate prices up the food chain (Walmart is the only one in the US like this afaik).
Yes, America, your food is more expensive now. Because for the past 70 years, your food prices have been artificially lowered as a result of anticompetitive market manipulations, government subsidies, backroom trade deals, and changing global environments. The majority of fresh produce you get in a US supermarket isn't even from this country! And let's not even talk about the sizeable portion of this country that doesn't even have access to fresh produce, regardless of cost. Your ability to "eat healthy" is more of a political act than a gastronomic or commercial one.
My contribution, the over-the-shoulder cellphone holder, is just one recent innovation helping groceries and personal shoppers to reduce costs, save time and enhance revenues and so on (https://SNEKmount.com)
Amazon, as well as owning Whole Foods, an upmarket grocer, now runs 29 “Fresh” supermarkets, mostly in suburbs of large cities. At these stores shoppers need not use a till at all, instead being automatically charged as they pick items off the shelves and walk out. Until recently, home delivery of groceries in America (unlike Europe) has often relied on gig-economy workers walking round ordinary supermarkets—a costly model.
But that is also changing. Walmart’s head of e-commerce, Tom Ward, is British and has brought ideas pioneered in Britain, such as “dark stores”, where goods are packed exclusively for delivery. In Arkansas, Walmart has even experimented with dispatching groceries by drone. On May 24th it announced that the programme is expanding to five more states.
How much these ideas will change how Americans shop is unclear. Cutting product lines is often unpopular; big cars and big fridges still support a model of big grocery stores with surprisingly high prices. Still, as consumers fret about inflation, the pressure on American supermarkets to innovate and cut costs is bound to grow.■
HEB is loved in Texas (suspiciously absent from NE Texas), but has a pretty great line of private label foods, competitive prices that are usually at or below Walmart's prices. For example, when meat prices spiked because national meatpackers had problems, HEB's Texas meatpackers didn't have such high costs (less of a spike).
They have to be doing well financially with a decent markup, but the quality is pretty great and other chain grocers usually don't have the same draw that HEB does in markets where they compete.
[+] [-] techietim|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caminante|3 years ago|reply
1. Install uBlock
2. Click <Disable Javascript>
3. Re-load the webpage
Works on NYTimes and many other JS paywalled sites, too!
[+] [-] DubiousPusher|3 years ago|reply
We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting.
We got produce direct from growers, at various markets and from our garden. I would get strawberries once a year when they were plentiful enough to be affordable in a pallete from a local bulk market.
Baked goods were what you got from home, otherwise you could have generic branded spongelike bread loaf.
American supermarkets blow my mind. I can get strawberries, blackberries and blueberries year round. There is a butcher in the store selling fresh high quality meats. There is a bakery producing French roundloaves, donuts and cookies, most produced in the last 24-48 hours.
It's incredible. And yet, when I unload my cart of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and baked goods it doesn't look like the carts around mine. They are full of canned foods, frozen foods, boxed foods, etc. I'm not judging. You can't beat a frozen pizza for satisfaction/effort, especially when you weren't expecting to feed anyone. But I can never get over the variety in my local produce section.
When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins. (Fuck raisins.) You can make a great meal fast with few ingredients. If you take the time to have brown sauce or demi glace on hand.
Even with the aid of the supermarket and all it can provide, good food takes time. And that requires sacrifice. One parent has to come home after 8 hours working and cook. The kids can't do extracurriculars every week of the night. If you want to enjoy food culture, both cars have to be in the driveway a couple nights a week. And IMO that's why class and America's work culture have a lot more to do with our poor food culture than our grocery stores.
[+] [-] jandrewrogers|3 years ago|reply
The creation of a free trade zone for agriculture from the Arctic to the Antarctic along the American side of the Pacific Rim is a significant contributor. Everything is in season somewhere. I don't know if younger generations appreciate the magnitude of the change in American food markets.
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|3 years ago|reply
Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively.
Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. They also don't appreciate frozen vegetables, which are just as healthy as the fresh stuff, even if it might not taste quite as good some of the time.
One of the things that the Food Network did a HUGE disservice to people is that a couple of entire generations (Xers and Millennials) were convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. There was maybe one show on that entire network with a host who would use kits and flavor packets and other items, and she was regularly panned by the audience for not being "authentic" enough.
[+] [-] quartesixte|3 years ago|reply
I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense.
I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore.
[+] [-] asiachick|3 years ago|reply
The bread here in SF is horrid and that includes that massively over rated Tartine, not to mention how bad the baked products are at most supermarkets. They're shovelware baked goods. The produce selection is 1/3rd what it is in France and much of it is tasteless compared to the good stuff you'd find in Japan or France. There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. !/10th the selection of pâté. But hey, we get fresh tortillas so you win some you lose some. Even the milk here is off. Our beer selection is 1/50th of Belgium and zero of the sweet ones. Our cider selection is 1/5th of the UK's.
It's all relative. If you were at a 1 and entered a 5 then it seems like a huge step up. But if you then experienced a 10, that 5 no longer seems so great.
[+] [-] lettergram|3 years ago|reply
It’s also what has enabled us to diversify. Easy to obtain any food, any time, without much meal prep.
I personally am still looking to grow, store and remain self-sufficiently. But it’s entirely a life style choice; built out of my fear for the further.
Ask yourself, can the next generation build supermarkets? I don’t know if they could. It’s an amazing work logistics. Further, it requires California and growing food in desert. It also requires an abundance of energy for transport AND international trade. All of which is under tremendous pressure.
[+] [-] lampshades|3 years ago|reply
I live near several supermarkets now and they have literally everything, all the time. But it's like you said, it takes time to cook good food. In addition, when you grow up having so much access to quick meals (including restaurant options), you grow up never learning how to actually cook and I think it takes you a lot longer than it would have otherwise. It seems to me nobody knows how to cook anymore because it's barely necessary.
[+] [-] ramraj07|3 years ago|reply
Like your railing on frozen food. You realize frozen food is far fresher and less likely to have “chemicals” or whatever is your choice enemy right?
[+] [-] cf|3 years ago|reply
Instead we had fruit stands selling produce, a bakery, a butcher, fishmonger selling seafood. And this isn't mentioning all the ethnic food stores. All of this was on two or three short blocks. The first time I saw a supermarket was when we went to New Jersey. It was a Wegmans and I think what was amazing to me was just how much stuff a single place could have.
I think ultimately it does come down to convenience. I think it's easier than ever to have decent meal at home. You don't even have to peel your own carrots or tear your own lettuce anymore. Sure something with more complexity might take time, but that's better for a weekend.
[+] [-] JJMcJ|3 years ago|reply
Slice an onion.
Slice mushrooms.
Fry up with ground beef.
Add a little water or soup stock or bone broth.
Let simmer for a minute.
Quick meal.
Just one of a million examples for quick recipes that take minimal skill. You can even run the veggies through a chopper or food processor.
[+] [-] onion2k|3 years ago|reply
Bread in most instore supermarket bakeries is a matter of cooking frozen dough that arrived on a truck rather than making anything from scratch. What you buy was produced a lot more than 48 hours ago.
[+] [-] InefficientRed|3 years ago|reply
Canned, frozen, and boxed foods offer a much higher "calorie/dollar" ratio. Berries, in particular, are wildly expensive on this metric even in-season.
A family with 3 kids, 2 cars, and median earnings (one part-time, since working to pay for childcare often makes no financial sense) literally cannot afford to subsist primarily on "meat, cheese, and fresh produce".
[+] [-] realcertify|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmoriarty|3 years ago|reply
This really depends on the cuisine. I've really been getting in to Indian food recently and the recipes in it are nothing like what you're describing.
Relatedly, one of my main complaints against American supermarkets is that they all seem to be catering towards makings Italian food. Some have "ethnic" food sections, but those tend to be tiny and mostly filled with Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food... And even there have nowhere near the selection of a grocery store specializing in that cuisine.
American supermarkets also tend to be full of meat dishes, with few selections (outside the fresh fruit/vegetable isles) for vegetarians... Though that's been getting a little better in recent years in an some parts of the country.
[+] [-] Hellion|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogota|3 years ago|reply
However you can make lots of good food ahead of time and freeze it. I spend a few hours every Sunday and it makes for quick 30 minute no effort meals for about two weeks.
[+] [-] iancmceachern|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _wldu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] computerliker69|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spywaregorilla|3 years ago|reply
Or 10! or 12!
[+] [-] photochemsyn|3 years ago|reply
However, you have to learn to cook. This is a barrier for some people. To me cooking is relaxing and I've got a lot of low-effort high-speed methods, but then I have a background as a wet lab researcher and that's about 100X as painstaking, where you're tracking every single thing you do in a lab notebook, mixing up solutions with precisely measured masses and volumes, adjusting pHs, running timers and working in this high-pressure environment where one screwup can waste a whole day's work if not a whole month's. Cooking in comparison, I don't use recipes, it's just pure fun. Get a decent collection of spices, that's important. Learn to clean as you go, and you can take most raw ingredients and go right to a great meal in half an hour.
If you've never done much cooking, a course isn't a bad idea. Indian cooking classes are great for teaching you how to cook a wide variety of grains/beans/veggies. Baking is more of a hassle as you have to measure stuff out and be more careful with temps and times, and tends to take a bit longer, but has the benefit of being able to make larger dishes for more people in one shot.
[+] [-] SoftTalker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ge96|3 years ago|reply
I cook the same meal almost everyday. I have precooked a pot of white rice (trying to use brown) that sits in the fridge. I start cooking a chicken quarter or two and then microwave some mixed frozen vegetables (corn, green beans, carrots). Then I put some of the rice on top of that, microwave again, then the chicken is done (add some seasoning) and eat with salt. I listen to a podcast while cooking.
Otherwise I eat junk food (BK/TB/McDs or ramen shop). I do have a binge eating problem (bored or way to fight brain dead). But I can also fast eg. eat a meal a day for weeks to drop 10s of lbs. It's not easy to keep it consistent. Also I am more productive if I don't eat the entire day (except caffeine/water), eating induces tiredness.
[+] [-] tomcam|3 years ago|reply
Whoa, your job is safe from the likes of me. I have undergone some tough times, but… that’s a bridge too far. Yikes.
[+] [-] Vladimof|3 years ago|reply
Some also sell imported fruits and veggies...
[+] [-] fredley|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] azalemeth|3 years ago|reply
If you're interested, in Denmark it's amazing to see the cultural differences – lots of lovely vegetables but with many different types of carrots, swede and turnips!
[+] [-] sdfhdhjdw3|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] petercooper|3 years ago|reply
In semi-related news, The Independent ran a story yesterday about how Brexit is causing less British fruit and veg to be produced: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-britis...
[+] [-] CraigJPerry|3 years ago|reply
E.g. i have two awesome butchers nearby, the fruit and veg shop is way better than 5 years ago in terms of selection - quality and price was always good there but selection is fantastic now. I’ve got lots of random little shops nearby now, e.g. a coffee roaster, a social food thingy etc etc
5 years ago this town mostly had just hairdressers on the Main Street.
[+] [-] mbrodersen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laurencerowe|3 years ago|reply
Tesco somehow always managed to have what I needed but my local Safeway in SF frequently has empty shelves (predating the pandemic.) And unless you go to Trader Joe’s (which is missing a bunch of other stuff) there’re no nice freshly preprepared meals available.
[+] [-] mgraczyk|3 years ago|reply
For example I can get a pint of heavy cream for ~$2 at the cheap store, or I can get an organic fancy one for $15 at Whole Foods. I can also get a normal brand name (Horizon) for either $3 or $6, depending on where I buy it. Finally, Safeway has a unique ultra-pasteurized product that is way better for me (lasts for months) for ~$4. Very difficult to make any generalizations about service or value.
[+] [-] tthun|3 years ago|reply
author also use gross profit of Walmart, which sells everything from salt to guns, as a measure of profitability for “grocery” stores.
What are the “peddling” here - dark store as a concept ?
[+] [-] sdrabing|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevin_thibedeau|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] beastman82|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j7ake|3 years ago|reply
It makes grocery shopping in Italy much more pleasant than in USA. You go into any grocery store in Italy and you are assured that you will get good quality products no matter what price range you pay.
[+] [-] rco8786|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TYPE_FASTER|3 years ago|reply
Here are a couple maps:
* https://grocerystory.coop/food-co-op-directory
* https://foodforchange.coop/featured/u-s-food-co-op-map/
[+] [-] Thorentis|3 years ago|reply
The solution to this problem in the US and the UK is less globalism, not more.
[+] [-] jordanmorgan10|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1270018080|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|3 years ago|reply
I like the generality of super markets. I like to cook so I buy whole grains/rice, lots of fresh produce, a variety of foreign/exotic spices and prepared sauces, and occasional free range/no feed lot beef. On the other hand, I know people who don’t have as much free time as I have and they can get frozen/canned, etc. food that is fast to prepare. Everyone gets what they want or need.
That said, my wife and I also frequent the weekly farmers’ market, and I go to a tiny store where I see local producers unloading locally grown produce from their pickup trucks.
I wonder if a byproduct of inflation might be more people cooking healthier meals from bulk/cheaper staples.
[+] [-] throwaway892238|3 years ago|reply
It's also amazing to see supermarkets getting the blame. Food prices are almost entirely based on trade deals and exploitation by food producers. Supermarkets are just the last mile in a long chain that includes not just food producers and transporters and sellers, but competing markets with politically-influenced tariffs and government subsidies. The price you pay for food has almost nothing to do with the supermarket, unless said supermarket has such a stranglehold on its markets that it can dictate prices up the food chain (Walmart is the only one in the US like this afaik).
Yes, America, your food is more expensive now. Because for the past 70 years, your food prices have been artificially lowered as a result of anticompetitive market manipulations, government subsidies, backroom trade deals, and changing global environments. The majority of fresh produce you get in a US supermarket isn't even from this country! And let's not even talk about the sizeable portion of this country that doesn't even have access to fresh produce, regardless of cost. Your ability to "eat healthy" is more of a political act than a gastronomic or commercial one.
[+] [-] ww520|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SNEKmount|3 years ago|reply
Amazon, as well as owning Whole Foods, an upmarket grocer, now runs 29 “Fresh” supermarkets, mostly in suburbs of large cities. At these stores shoppers need not use a till at all, instead being automatically charged as they pick items off the shelves and walk out. Until recently, home delivery of groceries in America (unlike Europe) has often relied on gig-economy workers walking round ordinary supermarkets—a costly model.
But that is also changing. Walmart’s head of e-commerce, Tom Ward, is British and has brought ideas pioneered in Britain, such as “dark stores”, where goods are packed exclusively for delivery. In Arkansas, Walmart has even experimented with dispatching groceries by drone. On May 24th it announced that the programme is expanding to five more states.
How much these ideas will change how Americans shop is unclear. Cutting product lines is often unpopular; big cars and big fridges still support a model of big grocery stores with surprisingly high prices. Still, as consumers fret about inflation, the pressure on American supermarkets to innovate and cut costs is bound to grow.■
[+] [-] grendelt|3 years ago|reply
They have to be doing well financially with a decent markup, but the quality is pretty great and other chain grocers usually don't have the same draw that HEB does in markets where they compete.