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by fredley·4y ago·view on hn ↗
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.

16 comments
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.

> I think part of it is that UK standards are lower when it comes to food

This is patent nonsense. Current UK food standards for the moment are aligned with EU standards despite Brexit.

> 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.

Yet more nonsense based on absolutely no evidence at all.

I think they mean personal expectations, not safety or technical standards.
You have misunderstood the comment.

The food selection in Italy, in most areas, is unmatched anywhere else.

It's because of what Italians demand.

If UK citizens really wanted better food, it would appear.

'Health and Safety' standards and even 'grade certifications' etc. have nothing to do with it.

I think you're right. For example in EU supermarkets you will typically find, separately: white onions, brown onions, sweet onions etc. In the UK: onions. Maybe sometimes also 'large onions'. Same goes for most other produce.

It's chicken and egg, as the demand for this won't materialise without awareness and the awareness won't arise without the knowledge there even are different types of onions, I imagine most Brits are clueless.

This is a ridiculous claim and entirely false (just go look at the online grocery sites e.g. https://www.ocado.com/browse/fresh-chilled-food-20002/vegeta... ). I have never experienced this in the UK. What kind of shops are you guys going to in the UK?

Red onions, brown onions, white onions (normal, large, bulk bags, loose or bagged, pre-chopped etc), shallots, echalions, spring onions, red spring onions, tropeas etc (them also organic + non-organic varieties of each) are all normal to see in UK super markets (at least in my local part of London). Even Tesco - a chain that many would say is the lowest of the low super market "for poor people" in the UK - carries these.

Depends where you are. Food deserts exist, even in relatively affluent countries. The range of goods at a supermarket is different in Bath (affluent) to Maerdy (poor).
What type of onions are the UK "onions"? I'd assume white onions because they're attractive and versatile?
Yeah but where else can I get the unhealthiest food in the world: prepackaged scotch eggs
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.

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...

My parents are in Ireland and they're saying the same thing as we are - shelf life for fresh produce has dropped. Anecdotally, we've noticed that all our seasonal produce (e.g. strawberries right now) seems to have a decent 4-5 day shelf life.
I have noticed the same thing with Christmas trees. They lose their "tiny green things" (name?) earlier.

Maybe picker/cutter shortages? Like instead of picking the strawberries or cutting trees with 10 people in one week 5 people do it in two weeks? To fill up one truck load.

I understand people here debating veggies and fruits or meat. But Christmas trees? How often does one buy one? Once a year? Might have been a fluke? Or do you have a compelling reason to relate this to Brexit?
> "tiny green things"

“Pine needles”, as we say in the business

"needles"
You need to get a base that allows you to water them, also some varieties just drop no matter what. Nordman firs seem ok still.
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.

I moved from the UK to Canada and still miss UK supermarkets to a degree. That said, I went back for ~1 month last summer and often ended up needing to go to multiple supermarkets to find basic things such as chicken breasts... If Brexit isn't the cause I'd be very surprised.
More likely covid was the issue (assuming you went in 2021?)

A lot of unavoidable staff sickness has caused major troubles in manufacturing and delivery of goods.

Plus some real stupidity relating to tax and licensing of lorry drivers. :-(

Yes, brexit has had an effect, but I think covid is more significant.

What I remember of the UK you had to inspect everything you buy closely. In Australia you don’t it is pretty much all good.

Also avocado and mangos taste good in Australia and are hard and tasteless in UK.

Most fruit is grown in Australia except out of season stuff that is easy to spot by it being triple the normal in season price.

My daugther was born in Finland. She always loved to eat fruit. When she was 2 we went to Australia and suddenly she did not want to eat "the same" fruit anymore. Well, they really tasted like fruit and not like colored water.

The UK might be marginally better than Finland, but they also get a lot of imported watery taste from Spain etc.

>they also get a lot of imported watery taste from Spain etc.

A lot of this is just eating out of season fruit grown in greenhouses and picked early to be transported to be "ripe" on the shelves. Eating fresh Italian tomatoes in February is as poor an experience as eating UK tomatoes in February, but eating them in June is likely to be much better in both cases.

> 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 think it’s an Anglo thing. Canada, the US, and Australia are all like this too.

Australian supermarkets have gotten much better in the last few years. The quality is still lower than what you can find in your local green grocer or butcher, but there is a wider variety of items and specific supermarkets will carry items for the local community that other locations won't have. And so long as you buy in season, the supermarket is usually fine.
ah I noticed as well. UK supermarkets are great for junk food or novelties (Marks & Spencer is fun), but it's hard to buy good, simple food. Italy has greats supermarket and grocery stores.

Also Hungary has bad supermarkets, in my opinion.

Booths (regional chain in the northwest) are outstanding; Waitrose are obviously good too. Our local co-op, Midcounties (the second biggest, I think) has a number of Food Market stores which have a really decent range. But if you go by Tesco and Asda you’ll be disappointed.
My greatest frustration with UK supermarkets is the illusion of choice. You'll find metres of shelving with the same product in different branding / price points. Went looking for Thai Jasmine rice, but the rice section is just 40 variants of Basmati, & one box of Arborio. There's 5 metres of fridges packed with fish but it's all Cod, Haddock and Salmon in various guises.

If you want any ingredient that's remotely off the beaten track (and I'm not talking super exotic stuff, basics herbs like Sage are hard to find) you've got to go Waitrose or specialty shops.

This fucks me off no end. As someone who eats vegemite, to find a full meter of shelving dedicated to Marmite in various formats almost everywhere is very frustrating. For long shelf life goods what's the downside of just providing more options?
>> At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg

How much do you need? Is the problem that the supermarkets are crap or that your expectations are stupidly high? Any large Tesco/Sainsburys etc has every vegetable that I’ve ever tasted available all year round.

That reminds me of a scene from the movie "Infamous" which is about Truman Capote and Harper Lee traveling to rural Kansas in the 1960s to research Capote's true crime book "In Cold Blood". Truman visits a grocery store to buy cheese and only finds Velveeta processed cheese there. He asks an employee if that's all the cheese they have. The employee says "Well, how much do you need?" missing the point that it wasn't the amount but the lack of variety that was the issue.
Portugal is a difficult comparison because it has a great climate and very low wages. Compared to Northern France, Netherlands, Scandanavia etc British supermarkets are pretty decent.
Same in France. My parents basically never go there and just shop at farmers’ markets, or butchers, or bakers, or fishermen, etc.

Although I remember waitrose in the UK not being bad

UK supermarkets are far better in terms of fruit and veg selection than anything we have here in Germany. It can be much worse trust me. UK is also way cheaper
Honestly? Where are you shopping, what are you comparing to each other? I think the segmentation of stores in the UK and Germany are very different.

UK has Waitrose and (for some things) M&S for high quality fruit and veg. But they are also highly priced. Germany does not have a posh equivalent. However the common non-discounters (Rewe, Kaufland, Edeka, Globus), are really not bad.

I am not sure about the exact number of fruit and veg SKUs in Tescos and Sainsburys (UK) but I often find them of less quality than I remember them in Germany. I never had issues shopping fruit or veg in Germany nor the UK though.

I also noticed that the UK imports very aggressively non-seasonal products from afar. Like beans from Peru or blueberries from Morocco. I am not sure of that happens in Germany, too. So potentially you are noticing exotic fruit and veg having a different availability, which might be due to different customer awareness towards the impact on the climate of imported goods from afar.

Everything other than Waitrose in the UK is a “budget” brand. That’s why the selection is poor, and why the presence of a Waitrose makes house prices go up around it.
Rewe and EDEKA aren’t bad but are far more expensive than UK supermarkets and still have less selection. The quality is higher though. Lidl is about the same but far more expensive. Aldi Nord is far worse than Aldi Süd which is in the UK

Btw I would definitely say that most Germans consider Rewe to be the posh equivalent

Isn't discount supermarket a perception. I mean they are all supermarkets.
What German supermarket are you comparing too? Rewe, Edeka, and Real have a very wide offering of fruits and vegetables. Are you comparing to discounters?

In my experience Germany has the best supermarkets I’ve ever encountered, with ridiculously aggressive prices.

Rewe and EDEKA are extremely expensive compared to UK supermarkets
Lived in Denmark for a while, it was worst than anything I experienced in Germany and much more expensive. Though I found smaller shops, asian and middle eastern run with great vegetables and tofu (hard to find for some reason). And this was in Copenhagen mind you.
I have also heard this. It’s just so variable depending on local expectation and country
That explains the fruit and vegetables we have in the US in Aldi. I buy produce elsewhere.
Also has great produce. The section just varies from week to week.

I got a great deal on small cucumbers and mangos but next week they didn't have either.

Weird, I just moved to the US and Aldi is one of my favorite places.

Where do you go for produce? I'm in Chicago if that matters.

How is thos possible? When the Lidl and Aldi are both in the UK and Germany and what about the Netherlands?

From my understanding the Netherlands is the same as Germany.

Is the UK supermarket the same as the Netherlands?