Grocery prices in France
...maybe we're not so "rip of Britain" as we think we are.
We've just returned from a three week holiday in France...
We had the premonition of eating seasonally off the land - with copious amounts of cheap Fresh French vegetables..(in fact..most were imported from Spain due to being cheaper)....we were surprised!
With the exception of tomatoes...courgettes were 50% more expensive, onions were 4 times the price, and potatoes were double....all coming from the same suppliers that Tesco use.
I still can't understand why a huge supermarket 3 miles from a Camembert factory, charges 20% more than the same brand in Sainsbury's.
As for wine....I bought Chapoutier CDR village in Tesco for £5.20 a bottle....in Carrefour it was £8
Still....the country and its scenery makes up for the prices...we're off again in September...I'm taking my own onions and shallots this time :-)
Comments
-
We have never found the wines more expensive in France. Although we occasionally spend the same for a bottle as in the UK, it is always for something that would be much more expensive here, to the extent we would consider it out of our price range. If you stick to wines from the local area, perfectly acceptable plonk is available at a fraction the price we pay here.
3 -
and what about diesel? , we travelled from Spain into France, Spain is very cheap for fresh veg and fruit, and good plonk is also much cheaper so we stocked up with what was feasable before entering France, but, yes do agree France can be expensive but some of the Carrefour supermarkets have some good bargains if you are there at the right time.
0 -
The Provencal rose type wines we like are a minimum of £7 a bottle and most £9 /10 in UK supermarkets. Same type of wines between 2.5 and 5€ in French supermarkets. Even less in the Provence, where you can normally get something good on promotion. So at least for us some substantial savings in this department.😀
Meat and fish seem more expensive. However, with fish the range and quality put our offerings to shame, so I don't begrudge the extra.😋 Plus again there is normally a few things on promotion that are very good value.
1 -
We just spent 5 weeks in France and generally found the supermarkets OK but not as good as they used to be. A lot of Spanish produce but also local French as well. Like the UK, fruit is picked unripe so can be quite disappointing; the markets are better. Wine is quite a bit cheaper due to the lower tax but you need to be selective; just like over here. Wine boxes are very popular.
The French are willing to spend more on food and the fish counters in the supermarkets are far superior to UK.
2 -
Couldn't disagree with any of the posts. All have made salient points. We tend to now visit France once every 2 years instead of annually and find that a basket of our normal shopping in any supermarket in France works out more expensive than at home.
The quality of some of the produce such as cheese and especially fish is usually excellent and well worth the money but everyday fruit and veg, meat and household goods are indeed above what we would want to pay, even at the market stalls, although again if buying fruit and veg you will normally find better quailty than here. Not for everything, just talking generally now. (This year we had some of the best new potatoes ever, picked that morning from local source and in Britain)
Wine is generally cheaper if you can buy from source.
We find Germany on a par with the UK, including campsite fees, and Spain a bit cheaper. If we go to Switzerland we tend to sell a child first.
1 -
I am not sure France has been cheap for food since they changed to the Euro!!! However I have not found them overly expensive. What I did notice was that when we first went to Austria in 1992 food was very expensive but after they joined the EU it became similar to other countries like Germany, France etc. France has some wonderful supermarkets, like Carrefour, so you have to be careful what you are comparing with. The problem with buying wine in France is that you get little choice apart from French wine!!!
David
0 -
Coffee is cheaper in France, but tea is dearer. Beer is cheaper in France but milk is dearer. So we drink coffee and beer.
2 -
Found this online. Spain and Portugal look the same colour as the UK.
Edit.
That annoying white bar has made the bottom boxes on the key light. However, they get progressively darker purple indicating higher price.
0 -
Yes David there is a lot of info out there if you care to look. I think on last years statistics we were around 8% cheaper. I suppose it depends on how you "live" on holiday, if you go out for meals etc.
I didn't use this linked site as a reference, I used another one but here's some information. LINK
0 -
Better make the most of it while we can!
Although we don't spend months on the continent and can't speak for prices in France, we have noticed in the past few years, particularly in Spain and Italy that shopping for fresh food in markets can produce some surprisingly good deals as can eating out. Even in supposedly expensive places like Sorrento last year and Barcelona the year before were pleasantly surprised at how far our euros stretched.
1 -
I was drinking Grimbergen but the waiter at Le Golfy restaurant (where we had lunch most days) told me they now had ee pay ah, and asked whether I had tried it.
0 -
Yes, Spain is cheaper and France isn't (as per the OP) but I was talking about general European food costs where the UK comes out well. We're off to a very expensive European country soon, the UK will do even better against that one. Other than that I'm just making a general comment, makes a change to find the UK better value for food, as Moulesy commented we better enjoy it whilst it lasts.
0 -
Agree with Aldi and Lidl's we do shop in Lidl's a lot also local markets for fresh produce at least a lot of fresh produce is not wrapped like the UK and we did notice items were dearer last year on our UK visit, we have a friend who will not touch anything in food from Spain she says it is all GM food and will not take holidays there even though her OH wanted to go there in September so going to Corsica for the 4th time and she buys most of her veg and fruit from a BIO stall in Cahors every Saturday but as we say each to their own, we do noticed that in the winter there is still a lot of french local produce where as in the UK a lot of items come from Kenya or Eygpt not seen that here but a lot from Morocco.
0 -
We've always found the food in supermarkets to be more expensive in France but there again i am on holiday so I tend not to worry too much...and it does make a change to go food shopping in a Carrefour or Intermarche etc. Wine is deffo cheaper!
0 -
France has become very expensive, but you don’t get social unrest without high prices!
0 -
We buy handfuls of cooked crevettes at every supermarket in France, langoustines, rillettes, and St Nectaire cheese too, good pate de campagne in every village market, and strawberry tarts from all the bakers. I cannot give comparative costs as I have no idea what they would cost in the UK, or even where to find them outside Harrods food hall.
0 -
Now look what you've done. I've got saliva all over my keyboard.
1 -
agree with David, France seemed very expensive on our two trips last year.....funnily enough we thought the price of tomatoes to be outrageous, lol....
markets better, fuel high...
Spain OTOH is just plain cheap....eating out, supermarkets, fuel costs, camping....and we stayed in some really nice resorts....
none of this will put us off touring France, we just happen to love the place, but for great value over wintering Spain is still the place for us...
0
