How are you tracking returning users without cookies? Also if it’s multi-lingual, how are you storing the language prefs?
We're not. And that's exactly the point, because we don't want to track. I make a distinction between tracking, analyzing and stats. What we do is guess who are the unique visitors (and who are not), and I say guess because it's guesswork since the browser can spew out any kind of info.
Cookies you require for functionality (ie. login cookies, language settings) require no consent, but do require to be laid out in a cookie policy.
Printed newspapers are disappearing. Ad supported news sites need tracking for ad targeting otherwise there isn't enough ad revenue to support their business.
Supermarkets are a bad example here because they are a critical link in the distribution economy.
Google? Not so much