French supermarkets

[fatsatsuma]

We are travelling in France a lot this summer, and one of the things that is worrying me (irrationally probably) is supermarket shopping.

After the initial novelty of wandering round a French supermarket, I'm going to want to get it done as quickly and cheaply as possible. I also don't want to look like a clueless foreigner at the check out

Any tips from experienced French travellers? Also any advice on particularly good things to look out for? Many thanks.

A traiteur is sort of like a deli except they also do cooked meals and you buy them. So if you can't be bothered to cook or go out and you have a houseful, worth nipping along and getting something. It's not fast food though and it will be pricey(ish). But worth it, authentically french and fun too.

You can get fresh milk everywhere now, it's just there's normally only a small cooler cabinet of it while there's acres of UHT, so you might have to look a bit harder to find it.

Nearly everything's been covered by everyone else, but look for store brands and "eco" (value) brands as food is more expensive here than the UK, according to my Mum who always spends her holidays with us exclaiming how expensive everything is.

Fruit and veg quality in the supermarkets has significantly improved over the last few years but there's not much fresh organic [bio] stuff. Our local supermarket has also just moved ALL of the organic food into one set of shelves, rather than keeping it mixed in with the normal products, so if you're in to organic it might take some searching.

Leader Price is a kind of Kwiksave and has some extremely good quality products for the price and shopping environment and I would thoroughly recommend it, along with Lidl and Picard (French Iceland).

Thanks for all this info. We are travelling by car but it will be stuffed to the roof so I really don't want to take lots of food with us. In fact the 'kitchen box' I'm planning to take is not much bigger than a shoebox...

What is the correct French term for fresh milk? I would probably hazard 'lait fraiche' but somehow that doesn't sound right - my French is embarassingly rusty

I've never had a problem buying fresh milk in France, although it sometimes seems a bit hidden and won't be in the aisle with all the UHT stuff.

Do buy some of the sirops (essentially posh squash I suppose, that come in metal bottles. You can drizzle them on icecream, too) - they are lovely. The grenadine is a particular favourite with ds, as is the iced tea flavour. Own brand is fine, btw.

You will be dazzled by the selection of yoghurts/fromage frais type stuff.

V.excited to hear dilbertina's news about the Carrefour scales!

re: carrier bags. There was a whole thread about them back in December. The carrefour ones are rather nice, imo. I have a few like this but then I am a ponce

some fresh milk as it might appear at Carrefour.

And some sirops

Another supermarket to look out for is le Mutant. I have bought some lovely cheese there that was v.inexpensive, and harissa too. Plus it is called Le Mutant, which amuses me.

I do like French supermarkets. Can you tell?

I'm a bit out of touch with UK prices (live in France) but from what I remember your biggest difference in price is convenience food - ready meals are really expensive here. Also, there are REALLY cheap supermarkets in some areas - Ed, Lidl, LeaderPrice etc which would be very cheap for basics. If you eat a lot of anything particularly "English" (baked beans, salad cream etc) definitely bring it - oh and don't forget teabags - French ones are hideous & 40 Yorkshire teabags in the English section at supermarkets are about €5,00. But have fun, buying stuff at different shops is half the fun surely?!

We did SuperU, it was the only one nearby.

Bio = organic (I think)

If you think of the size of fridge that is dedicated to milk in the UK, and the amount of fridge dedicated to camembert, and reverse them, that's how much fresh milk there is.

The value brand of the supermarket was fairly easy to spot.

As said before, take your rown bags, weigh fruit and veg on the scales (there may be a number for the type of fruit/veg near where it is stacked, as well as picture butons to press). Cheap wine is not necessarily bad.

Another thing (not food related) is that petrol will obviously be cheaper in supermarkets but the kiosk often closes for lunch time and some of the 24/7 payments systems don't take debit cards! Just in case (been there done that...)

Many Brits living in France are shopping online at Tesco, Asda etc and having it delivered to them by a courier because of the fall in the £ vs the ?.

It's not just food, I paid 5? for liquid paraffin for the cat, and the last time I was at the pharmacy in the village noticed E45 prods at 11 and 14?.