When you step inside a German grocery store, try not to drool. These places are large. They have things called choices. Not to mention the long lost concept of a freezer section.
It can all be a bit overwhelming for the shopper used to stores the size of a closet. If you’ve got your camera along, you just might be inspired to take a photo of the wonder of it all. There’s a reason shopping across the border is called “consumer tourism.”
Cheaper prices. Bigger packages. More selection. What’s there not to love about a little shopping in Deutschland?
Oh yeah, Swiss import limitations. Read about them here. But don’t let them spoil your fun in bringing home a few bags of tortilla chips that are three times the size of what you can find in Switzerland and half the price.
According to the International Herald Tribune, about 7-9 per cent of the Swiss population shops in Germany once a month. Last Saturday, like usual, the parking lot of the Famila in the border town of Waldshut, Germany was filled with an abundance of Swiss license plates.
Since 2007, the entire area around the train station in Waldshut has expanded and now includes three grocery stores: a Rewe, a Lidl, and my personal favorite, a Famila. It’s especially convenient for transport-challenged shoppers like yours truly who can simply take a 25-minute direct train ride from Baden to Waldshut and revel in stores big enough for two shopping carts to be going in opposite directions and not collide.
The novelty of personal space would probably make the trip worthwhile in itself, but let’s not forget the prices. Take ice cream. For the equivalent of SFr3.65 not only I can get a package of the same Mövenpick ice cream that costs SFr9.50 in Switzerland, but I can choose from a much larger variety of flavours.
And meat. Chicken is the equivalent of SFr14.65 a kilo versus about SFr34.50 in Switzerland. The only danger is, if you go to the counter, you just may forget the real German word for chicken and have to resort to asking for “poulet.” But not to worry. The German meat people are used to it and won’t make you feel bad.
While prices in Swiss grocery stores have fallen due to increased competition from German grocery stores like Aldi and Lidl making themselves at home in der Schweiz, according to my recent reading of Blick am Abend, Swiss grocers still average 33 per cent higher prices than German ones.
But most Swiss people say they could care less about these price discrepancies because they prefer “quality” over “price”. After all, who in their right mind would want to save money when they can have Swiss Qualität instead?
A foreigner like me. That’s who.
Tags: cost of living, Germany, Life in Switzerland, prices, shopping, Swiss
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I haven’t been to Germany yet for food shopping, I’ve only been in Zurich for 30 days, but I am highly impressed with the COOPs. They have excellent BIO sections. As an American I am use to lots of options, which I didn’t find living in the Czech Republic or even Austria. So so far so good. Though, I do miss Whole Foods.
Cheaper is by no means always better. Check quality and freshness, when you shop across the border. Living in Basel, my wife drove to Lörrach (Markhof) once a week. We had to throw away half of the food afterwards. If driving to Germany, visit one of the farmers-markets, either in the Alsace or in Lörrach/Weil. This might be an alternative: Or shop in Switzerland at a Swiss farm!!
I usually only buy food items in Germany that don’t spoil-like cereal, fajitas, chips, and cookies. With these items, the quality is equal if not better-at least to my American taste buds. I love Swiss farms too. There are a couple good ones in Baden (up at Baldegg) that sell Bio products. I am a frequent visitor. But I’ve also bought plenty of produce in Switzerland that has molded the day I bought it. So I don’t think one can generalize that there’s quality in one place and not another. Quality is subjective anyway. Prices, however, are not.
Whenever I go back to England, I just stand in the town supermarket’s bread aisle (about the size of a large Swiss Migros) & just drool for an hour or so. Why is there no choice in Switzerland? I get bored walking around the local Co-Op. I particularly miss “Meals-for-one” or ready made meals (ok, some are here but not many). We don’t all have a “hausfrau” waiting at home to wait on us 24/7.
For all Brits missing the “best food in the world”
and other ex-pats, why not just shop online :-
http://www.britshop.ch/
http://www.londonstore.ch/
http://www.xpatxchange.ch/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=176&Itemid=61
to name but a few.
Also price are subjective, or at least they are in respect of some things; like wages, rents, the size of your market, the size of your business, number of competitors, laws, ecc.
and there is one LiDL near where i live… Baar… and i am so tempted to go and check it out tomorrow… hehehehehe..
i m easily excited on these new openings thingy… like back in malaysia, when we hv the FIRST tesco store… it became the hottest place to be seen and to see
hehe
ya… i m used to have huge selction of everything too.. now… i just hv to get used to wht is available near the bahnhof!
Lucky you. No LiDL in Baden yet. Will be interesting to see how the Swiss prices at LiDL compare to the German prices at LiDL. Maybe shopping in Germany won’t be necessary much longer, although somehow I doubt it. (And I don’t think the novelty of shopping in another country will wear off anytime soon–at least for me.)
We do a lot of shopping in Germany and I have always found the quality to be excellent. Most of our shopping we do in Hieber but we also go to REWE. Great choice, excellent prices and I find the steak much tastier than that in Switzerland. The meat seems to be aged better unlike that in Switzerland which is bright light red in colour. We live near both Germany and French borders and find that the food in France spoils much faster so only buy things in France which we intend to use that day. Having the choice of shopping in Germany, France and Switzerland is one of the amazing perks of living in this region
I like the Coops and Migros. In the big ones, like the Coop in Zurich Oerlikon, you also have a lot of choice. I think that all the food sold in Migros and Coop is very high quality. In Britain, you have stores with cheap low-quality food but also medium-priced or high-priced high-quality food. Switzerland used to have only high-quality food. Maybe that is set to change, given that foreign stores are opening up.
Maybe none of you read the relabelled chicken stories (thrown away chicken, repacked for sale), or the similar mozarella scam last year - both Germany. Swiss standards are much better than that on offer in Germany, at least for the moment. Competition from aldi etc will force standards to the lowest acceptable, as happened in Germany when wall-mart entered.
Could you please provide more information about the bio farms in Baden/Baldegg? I’d love to know about them! Thanks!
Hi Magali, Sure, they are wonderful. One is called Suter’s Hoflaedeli. They have a gigantic apple farm (well, a Swiss-gigantic) and usually have a great variety of apples, pears, plums, potatoes, juice, and more. It’s at Baldeggstrasse 63, 5400 Baden. Phone number is 056 222 79 09. The other one is just around the corner and is called Bio-Laedeli. It’s at Baldeggstrasse 56. Phone number is 056 222 43 74. I love their yogurt here. Wonderful juices too. They also have butter, onions, apples and more. You can get to both by taking the bus to Baldegg. I think it’s the second to last stop. Or it’s also a great hike.
Thank you for this Chantal, these sound great! We’ll definitely hike there soon (when the weather gets better….).
Lynx, you are joking about British bread I hope? It’s absolute junk! Virtually any country in the rest of Europe has better bread than the UK, and how you can accuse the Swiss of not having variety is astounding. Not only do they have a huge selection of bread, but they also have seasonal bread. British bread is largely mass produced using CBP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_Bread_Process] Our local Waitrose use to bake frozen versions of this in the “in-store bakery” what a joke! It’s no wonder the Brits have high wheat intolerance eating that bloat inducing garbage all the time
Swiss stores do have good selection of bread. And also when it comes to selection, I am amazed at the amount of yogurt/dairy products available in Switzerland. It’s almost American style where I stand in front of all of them and just can’t focus because it’s all so overwhelming. But then there’s the soda. Forget choosing between even Coke or Pepsi in one store. It’s one or the other. And maybe an Orange or Grapefruit option. But what I want to know is, when are they going to get root beer?
Hi All,
I’m looking for places to buy some clothes for our kids (Age 2 and Age 6). Can anyone recommend some places close to Zurich/Schaffhausen. We’ll be in Schauffhausen/Zurich for a few days and we’ll have our own car, so we can hop across the border to do some quick shopping for the kids. Any suggestions, please, much appreciated.
Thanks
Hemant
Hi Hemant,
What kind of places are you looking for? Prices will generally be high in Switzerland, but a good department store in Zurich is Globus. Manor is also a good bet and usually cheaper than Globus. You can find both on the Bahnhofstrasse. If you want to cross the border, Waldshut has some cute shops in the old town that sell clothing.