Which is your favourite French Supermarket?

We had friends over at the weekend and it led to a discussion about supermarkets, in France we like Carrefour or Auchan, in the UK we love Waitrose & M&S. Our friend thought most Waitrose customers are snobs (probably true!) & prefers Tesco (well he does work for them so he’s biased). Our other friends prefer Sainsburys. I was brought up with ASDA & Morrisons so I can say I’ve pretty much tried them all. At Uni my friends shopped at Lidl & Aldi, I upgraded to Sainsburys (Student snob!).





In France we tried Lidl (but not a one stop shop so my hubby didn’t like it) & I tried Aldi which was rubbish compared to UK Aldi. Our friends have a place on the posher side of le sud de la France & use Carrefour or Geant Casino.





Where do you shop in France & why?



Agree about Simply Market, the shops i've tried in the Haute Vienne are great with good fruit & veg ( as good as Grand Frais) and a good selection of other everyday requirements

I love Carrefour but I don’t have a store nearby to walk to. Casino is the closest,however I discovered a Simply Market and for a smaller store they have a very good selection of produce, meats and special jams. I love my walk to Simply market, the cashiers are young, friendly and some love to speak English!

In Cape Town I was a Woolworth and Pick+Pay shopper,now I Like to shop at LeClere.Still get parcels from SA with all my goodies I can't find in France.

Carrefour have opened a new store near us - so its convenient, clean and spacious; its products are pretty good except for fresh veg and salad which is often quite tired looking. We also have a new Intermarche nearby which is cheaper but doesn’t seem to have as good quality products. Our nearest Geant is an hour away “in the big city” but we only go there once in 2 months to get “etranger” stuff we can’t get in our own Carrefour + I find the white goods are well priced in the electro-menager shop adjoining Geant. We also try to support our local baker and fresh fruit and veg shop + local markets. So basically we spread ourselves around !

Here in Brittany my local supermarket by 20 minutes is SuperU so I use that - I find the fish selection and prices excellent and the staff are all friendly too. When I have to go to St Brieuc I go to Le Clerc where bread is much cheaper, although I make my own nowadays, or to Carrefours. I don't like Intermarché at all. If I have to go to Guingamp I shop at Lidl for loo roll, some veggies and herbs, freshly-baked croissants at 29cents each, apple juice, huge kitchen rolls, flour with sunflower seeds 99cents to make two loaves and sometimes duck and icecreams.

In England I prefer Tesco but also use Asda and Aldi (much better in England than Lidl - opposite to in France where Lidl beats Aldi hands down) as they are each equidistant from my children's houses. Co-op is even closer and the reductions are second to none and I like their ethics although it's a small branch and the choice isn't there.

Our butchery in ATAC in Cluny is excellent and very helpful. You can buy farm quality meat.

How very put of touch you are Bruce. My friends shop both in Waitrose and Lidl.

I mostly use Carrefour, but depending on what I need, I go to all the supermarkets which are equi-distant from our house. Leclerc, Intermarché. Geant in Aix les Bains has rubbish Customer service. I like to go to the market and smaller shops for fresh produce.

Mine too - sounds fantastic!

SUPER U !

looking at some of the prices at Carrefour I think they are taking the piss !

Now why can't they do that down at Carrefour?!? :-)

I've just come back from Eric Le sausage. A bloke down the road who is a butcher & who has kitted out his large cellar to sell meaty things.

3kg sausage,1.5gk merguez,8 large pork chops, 2kg ribs,2.5kg turkey escallopes. 40 euros the lot including several glasses of wine & lots of piss taking with the locals.

Now that's my type of shopping

I usually go to Tesco or Sainsburys when I am back in the UK and am always amazed that they are open 24 hours a day, even in a small place like Honiton in Devon. In France I go to SuperU or Leclerc. Carrefour is too far away and we have a small Carrefour Market which is a bit expensive. Intermarché used to be rubbish but they have rebuilt it now so it is better. At the moment I use SuperU most of the time as you can order by internet and pay when you collect the shopping which I find really useful. Our local Leclerc doesn't offer this service, so they have lost my custom.

Isn't the British mentality weird? Class even permeates down to which supermarket you use! I used to use Tesco, simply because I liked the "feel" of it. Here I prefer Auchan, for the same reason, but it's a bit of a trek to get there and I tend to use it at the same time as doing something else on that side of town.Otherwise, I just use whichever is convenient.

I would like to shop in Grand Frais, but am not prepared to drive 40km to the nearest one.

My nearest supermarket (5km) is Atac, and it's OK for anything prepacked. I wouldn't buy fresh fish or meat there though.

Lidl is improving, but nowhere near as good as in the UK. Aldi is a dead loss as far as I'm concerned.

Carrefour is to be avoided except for things I can't find anywhere else - it's expensive and I object to their attitude that if it's on the shelf they've got it, otherwise they don't stock it - they refuse to accept that they're ever out of stock of anything. Ed was Carrefour's cheaper end of the range and has now been rebranded Dia and in my opinion has gone even further downmarket.

Leclerc is improving - it was awful years ago, except in its original location of Brittany.

Intermarché used to be a franchise, so varied enormously from one to the next.

I'd love the quality of Waitrose, but would go bankrupt, so I stock up on the rare occasions when I go back to the UK.

After 26 years here I've learned to live with the limitations, but really miss the range and quality of basic cook's ingredients. Why is icing sugar so expensive here? Decent light brown sugar is unobtainable, as is cream of tartar (for home-made baking powder), quality dried yeast, and so on. I'm hopefully heading to the UK later this month, so will stock up on all of this, plus cans of Canada Dry, a bottle of sherry, and so on.

I am a big Monoprix fan and I have a very good Franprix and I use Lidl for some of their fruit and vedg when I don't have time to go to my local market

It depends what i'm looking for.

The one thing I have learned is for the best vegetables (other than market gardeners and home-grown) I haven't found better than Grand Frais - the quality and choice is superb even tho' the prices are usually higher than other outlets. I don't mind paying a bit more for quality.Their meat products are pretty good too.

In the UK I was a Sainsbury's girl. Waitrose brought out the class hatred in me. Aldi in the UK is fine but rubbish in France. Me, local Leclerc and corner Coop Alsace. I like Auchan. But in France I mostly shop in Germany. Cheaper.