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Comment by DrBazza | Hacker News Reader

The American shopping experience is weird as well. There's a spectrum of supermarkets.

Versus the UK, any US supermarket I've ever visited (I lived there for a couple of years) seemed to have far less fresh food, especially vegetables and fruit, but stuff in boxes was piled high.

Then again, the UK vs. Spain or France is weird, by the same metric, they have even more fresh food than us in supermarkets, and much less boxed stuff.

Geography and having continent sized country probably doesn't help either.

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What grocery store chain in the U.S. are you referring to? Every major chain grocery store generally stacks fresh food around the entire perimeter of the grocery store, reserving the aisles for boxed, canned, and frozen food.

You can find dozens of varieties of fruits and vegetables, tons of fresh beef, pork, chicken and fish, milk, cheeses, even bread, in every major chain grocery store in the U.S.

This. Sometimes I hear people saying random stuff about the US and I have no idea what they're talking about. I'm aware of food deserts, but that aside, I could find fresh food in most grocery stores in the many places I've lived in the US. When I say "most", I'm excluding places like Dollar General that explicitly aren't about fresh food.

Honestly I had the same experience, and I love exploring supermarkets in the US (I genuinely go there after work and spend hours just wandering around). I often found the variety of produce to be really limited, as in, half the kinds of fruit than you would find in a smaller supermarket in Europe. Jack's fresh market, Walmart, Hyvee and local chains.

Which ones are you going to? 90% of what is in a grocery store is pre-packaged processed food. In fact, many grocery stores are starting to sell clothes. The produce sections are small compared to the aisles and aisles of boxed foods, frozen foods, soda, alcohol, and candy. I've never been into a major grocery store in any state that wasn't like this.

Is that accounting for just how much bigger the US supermarkets are?

The ones by me, ranging from cheap grocery stores, Walmart/Costco, through premium grocery stores, all have plenty of fresh food available.

They absolutely have aisles and aisles of frozen, packaged, etc; but outside of like specialty tropical fruits, there's nothing reasonable you could walk in for and not find fresh or at least frozen w/ minimal processing.

Those kinds of gigantic supermarkets do exist in Europe too, you're just not likely to see them as a tourist going around historical city centres.

Food quality and options vary significantly with location in the US. In my city I have a Gucci market that gets super fresh veggies and fruit, along with imported cheeses, fish, very fresh meats, and other low processed food, but at a premium price point. There are also 2 other supermarkets to choose from. If you go an hour away there is one supermarket for the area that is "okay." Go to the next State over and the towns have 1/4 the fruit/veggie options and very limited meat options, all at a premium. The veggies are not fresh, no exotic fruits, and you might not find the cut of meat you are looking for.

Less fresh food? Or a similar amount, in a larger building?

Fresh food spoils quickly and often goes around the perimeter as a draw to get people to navigate the whole store.

Shelf stable and frozen foods last much longer, and are what they try to fill the middle of the store with. This can be deceptive in terms of feeling equivalent - all stores are going to have ketchup, but one may have room for two kinds and another has room for 20.

Ive never been in a US grocery store that didnt have 20-30% of floor space dedicated to fresh veggies and fruit.

Where you shoppin’?

I don't see this. The US markets have lots of fresh vegetables and fruits (though lots of processed foods too). There are also lots of healthy alternative supermarkets in most cities.

And huge selection of frozen meals. These I actually found better than expected.

No idea what you're talking about!

I live on the west coast in the US and the sheer variety of fresh produce would put any supermarket in the UK to shame, even Spain. California produces 40% of the nation's veggies and fruits.

The difference can be explained in large part by urban design: many US shoppers need a car to drive to the supermarket and only go there once a week or less. In Europe you live much closer to a supermarket, so you go more often and get more fresh food and less frozen or canned.

Some Americans are surprised to learn that many supermarkets inside cities do not even provide parking, everyone walks or bikes there. People go to the supermarket every day.

Makes no sense IMHO: produce can last more than a week in the fridge

That makes no sense. If the average American can drive to the supermarket, they're even more likely to go more often than if they had to walk.

Eh, this is just not proven true by observing what people do though.

When I lived in Europe for a couple months, my first time there I grocery shopped like an American - filled up an entire cart with a week or two worth of groceries and then everyone stared at me when I checked out.

It's absolutely true that Europeans who live in walkable cities go to the market to pick up groceries a few times a week. Americans simply do not, with very few exceptions.

The grocery store density is much higher though. There were at least 2 grocery stores within a 5 minute walk from anywhere I've stayed in a city core in Europe. At least a dozen within 15 minutes.

It's simply a difference in culture. There are plenty of places in the US where you could drive to half a dozen grocery stores within 15 minutes but people simply don't do so. The store sizes reflect this cultural difference too. The average grocery store in the US seems to be 4-6x larger than those in Europe.

[shrug]

Your mileage varies, I guess. I used to live with easy walking distance of an upscale supermarket, but yet I did most of my shopping by driving to a different one farther away. Buying groceries with a car is simply more convenient.

Even after I moved out of that neighborhood, it wasn't unusual for me to stop at the grocery store every afternoon on my drive home.

>I grocery shopped like an American - filled up an entire cart with a week or two worth of groceries

Is that really how the average American shops though? The majority of shoppers these days are in the self checkout or "15 items or less" lines with only a single basket of stuff, at least in the stores I frequent. Granted, I'm close to a city center but the store I go to is not very walkable

You seem to be talking about a small subset of Europe. I’m sure people in New York have rather different lifestyles than many other Americans.

> In Europe

Isn’t a monolithic place. I don’t think there is a non micro-state country in Europe where the absolute majority of people don’t commute by car.

Living outside of dense urban areas without a car is still generally tricky. In quite a few cities there are no large supermarkets in the densest parts and you have to drive further from the center to find one. So not having a car might be tricky

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