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Groceries

In Zürich, there are 3 grocery chains with a major presence, and a fourth that's smaller but influential.

  • Migros is probably the least expensive, with a heavy emphasis on in-house brands. They're roughly comparible to Walmart. They're trying to expand into everything. There are Migros electronics stores, Migros banks, Migros credit cards, and even a Migros mobile phone plan.
  • Denner is a hybrid of convenience store and grocery store. They all seem to be small, though they have a pretty good selection for their size. For many of their products, they only sell the store brand.
  • Coop is a middle tier grocery store. They carry some in-house brands and a lot of the brands that you'd see anywhere in the world. I'd equate them to Target or Giant Eagle. Coop has also started to expand into other markets like banking.
  • Globus is very nice and very expensive. There are only a few of them in Zürich. They tend to have a much better selection of unusual international foods (they're the one place we've found in Zürich that sells peanut butter, for example). What they sell is of very high quality, but you definitely pay for it. I'd equate them to Whole Foods or another premium grocery store. 

As I've mentioned, things are a lot more expensive in Zürich, so we started out at the low end of this scale. Unfortunately, like Walmart, a lot of Migros store brand goods are pretty terrible (though the store-brand chocolate is quite good). Denner seems decent, but they are small and far away from us (I have to walk past two Migros and a Coop to get there), so I don't shop there as much. There's a Coop two blocks from our temporary apartment. For now, that's where we do most of our shopping.

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  1. Maralyn GableTuesday, May 31, 2016 at 11:54:00 AM GMT+2

    I guess because you have to carry everything, the distance is a big issue.

    ReplyDelete

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