WJS

We visited Brittany for the first time last November and I have to agree with you, in our short visit but we both commented on how friendly the people were that we had contact with there.

So sorry to hear of your troubles with your parents.

Hiro11

Try to find good BBQ or a good tamale in Grenoble.

Bob

Personally, in general, yes. Much more expensive for anything remotely consisting of any kind of minimal quality.

Also massive seasonal and regional variations in price.

Stuff like shell fish up in Maine that can be a couple bucks a bag, same bag is about $10-12 down my way.

Corn, up in Maine a couple years ago was 13 for a buck but last year was for 6...which was still about $2-3 cheaper than down my way.

Quality meat, dairy, fruit and baked goods are silly expensive.

At least food isn't taxed in MA/ME.

Bob

Trader Joes doesn't do coupons or sales. They're often cheaper for a lot of things though but they're probably a loss leader so they can slaughter you on the cost of the meat

scrubbedexpat091

I think corn farmers either had a bad year, or the price of corn because of fuel and other non-foood uses created more demand.

We were paying 1 or 2 dollars per ear last year, not seen it that high before.

This year I have secured some land in someone's back yard to grow my own...

FinnDiego

Sounds familiar. The problem with Vons and Ralphs though is that you'll need the loyalty card or you'll overpay by 10-20% for things that are supposedly on sale. The same ice cream that was regularly $5.99 was suddenly priced $7.99 for non-members when the member sale price was $4.99...

Yorkieabroad

I always enjoy grocery shopping when we go back. I generally find food is cheaper, with a better selection, and produce and meat are better quality. I love going down the High Street and visiting the individual butcher/baker/greengrocer shops. Not so much the fishmonger....

scrubbedexpat091

I would love to have a butcher shop. The grocery stores have such crummy selection of meat, and for whatever reason pretty much just pack it all as a family size pack, and well we don't need like 10 pork chops at one time, or 20 chicken thighs at once, and a lot ends up wasted as we don't eat it quick enough, and freezer burns.

I like to go in when I need meat, buy 2 chicken breasts and go home and cook it.

Grocery stores don't even cut/package meat in store anymore, it all comes vacuumed sealed and packed ready for the shelf and the store can't sell/package smaller amounts.

Seriously not everyone has a family to feed.....lol

Yorkieabroad

To be fair, our local HEB do their own cutting and packing on the meat, but it's still not got the feel of being a real butchers shop. At the risk of cross threading, one thing I like about the Costco meat is the prepackaged chicken...can get either 2 breast packs or 5 thigh packs....either work perfectly for portion control for us (family of 5)

Back to HEB....I had an "argument" with one of the butchers in there a few weeks back....
I asked "have you got any skin-on belly pork"
he replied "no, we haven't sold it like that in the 4 years I've been here"
Me " err, yes you have...I've been buying it like that at least once a month for the last 5 or 6 years..."
Him "no we haven't"

Sigh....I just wish they would get folk in who knew what they were doing, knew their product, their craft.
Back home in a proper butchers that would have been "let me nip out the back...how much do you want"....

GeoffM

Maybe it's similar to what I had in Stater Bros. End result was that if you wanted a specific cut of meat, get in early morning when the actual butchers are there cutting the meat, not the servers who quite literally don't know an arse from an elbow.

Or find an Asian/Mexican supermarket where you can get trotters and snouts, as well as any other cut you want.

HumphreyC

I don’t know that there is much of a gulf between the two countries in terms of grocery prices. I go back to the UK twice a year and my impression is it’s a case of ‘some things more expensive, some things cheaper, some things the same’.

The caveat to that is that it’s extremely difficult to compare the prices of products for several reasons. The first is that it’s hard to convert USD prices into GBP – adjusting for purchasing power parity - because you have to correct for wages and disposable income. US wages are higher numerically than UK wages and because prices track wages the relative value of a dollar in the US economy vs a pound in the UK economy is lower. As a result something that’s £4- £5 vs $8-$9 dollars could well be the same price depending on what ratio you are using. Obviously average wages and disposable income varies from state to state and city to city so you would have to take that into consideration as well.

The second problem is the size of the US and the huge regional variation in pricing between consumer goods. Actually it’s worse than that because there is a marked difference in prices between different towns and the stores within those towns (groceries were quite a bit cheaper in the previous town I lived in and it’s only 15 mins down the road). What price in which state for which product in which store in which town are you going to use to compare to the price of tomatoes in Tescos?

The third problem is the like for like question; are you comparing products of similar quality and quantity? There is an enormous amount of subjectivity involved here. So robin1234 complains that he can’t get decent wine – even for $10. I can think of loads of decent wine I can get for under $10 – but Robin likes French wine and I like Californian red. Conversely back in Jan I struggled to find a decent bottle of red in Sainsburys for 5 or 6 quid. Hungry Horace more generally thinks the prices in LIDL are lower than Market Basket. To my mind these aren’t comparable stores. Market Basket has the same grotty feel as LIDL and Iceland but LIDL and Iceland are true ‘bottom feeder’ stores with terrible produce. Depending on which store you go to the produce at Market Basket is actually quite good (their meat section in my local one is great for example). Last LIDL I went into was awful and I wouldn't even compare it to Walmart.

I’m not sure if bread is more expensive here but American store bought bread is terrible anyway. A breadmaker is a must for any expats moving here.

Bob

Most of the grocery stores have the meat come pre-packaged down our way and it's a real challenge to get a custom cut even if they do have a butchers, they can only cut into smaller chunks what they have there and then. Market Basket sometimes gets in a half a pig and can do custom cuts but it's pretty rare.

Some of the local Brazilian grocery stores down my way are pretty good and there's one that does get in slabs of animal and butchers himself, but the language barrier is a bit of a issue as he doesn't really speak any English.

Bob

I don't know...most Market Basket's I've been to are pretty bottom feederesk too, barely a step up from Walmart.

robin1234

Market Basket is entertaining though, with the folkloric DeMoulas family feud.

Sally Redux

Do you mean just for expats, or for everybody? I would find the latter very surprising.