Our Family’s Favorite Grocery Stores Globally
“Grocery Stores?”, you may say. Sounds boring! But we actually genuinely enjoy trying new products in grocery stores while abroad, as you inevitably stumble across some amazing products and get some insight into the local culture and cuisine by engaging in more of the normal day-to-day life abroad.
As a family of four traveling while taking a year long sabbatical with two kids, we have relied heavily on grocery stores and our Airbnb kitchens to prepare most of our meals (exception: Southeast Asia where restaurants/delivery were too cheap to resist). When we arrived in pretty much every country, we have not been familiar with the local grocers and have often initially found ourselves overspending on food by frequenting the wrong stores (we are talking about you, Tesco & M&S). Given this, we thought that we would share with you some of the grocery stores we frequented and liked so far on our trip.
Australia
In Australia, we started shopping at M&S on the recommendation of friends and our Airbnb host. However, everything seemed ridiculously expensive to us and so we decided to branch out. This is when we stumbled upon Coles, which was just as accessible (and honestly the primary grocer of many, if they’re being honest). It reminds us in Canada of when people claim to shop at Loblaw’s, but actually frequent No Frills. Nobody wants to say they shop at the cheaper place. Coles helped us improve our costs, had a fantastic online delivery service, and were conveniently located throughout Australia.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, we were fans of the New World grocery store. We still have their green bag to prove it. The tricky part about New Zealand is that if, like us, you elect to do a multi-island driving tour, sometimes you literally do not have a choice on your grocer. We had a number of stays, particularly on the west coast of the South Island and up near Coromandel, where the only grocery store within an hour was a Four Square. So we overpaid and went to Four Square.
France
In Paris, we did not really have a go to market that we would use. Everything seemed fairly expensive. In the South of France, we relied heavily on Carrefour, but this was only because it was in walking distance. Carrefour seemed fairly reasonably priced, but we did not compare it with other grocers due to the convenience of it.
Portugal
In Portugal we relied heavily on Pingo Doce, which was a great supermarket – plenty of variety, good produce, and well stocked stores that even had some good basic prepared meals (rotisserie chicken, anyone?). The prices were incredibly affordable for Europe and really helped us to keep our costs down. This one is a no-brainer and we would remember any location that we saw (to return later).
Spain
In Spain, our favourite supermarket by far was Mercadona. For us, this was the Spanish equivalent of Pingo Doce and also a no-brainer. Costs were low, great variety, high quality produce, and most of their store brand products (Hacendado) were quite good. The one big exception to this were their house brand breakfast cereals were absolutely horrible. We had to toss two nearly full boxes. Be sure to test out their chorizo sausage and take advantage of the fresh charcuterie meat station.
England/Ireland
In England and Ireland, we started with a brand we were familiar with (Tesco), but noted that all the best prices were reserved for their loyalty members and the overall cost still seemed expensive (it doesn’t help that euros/GBP kill the CAD). So we were keen to try something else. The other option that was proximate to the places we were staying was Aldi, and we have not looked back. They had some incredible house brand products – snack foods ranging from trail mixes, dried mangos, and yogurt coated cranberries at less that 2 euros a bag. They even have some pretty decent frozen foods, which we have often relied on for lunch (Indian hors d’oeuvres, anyone?).