Tuesday 30 October 2012

We're not in Safeway any more Toto

Another shopping post....but no quaint stalls or artisan honey tastings here : this is conventional store shopping.

Welcome to the InterMarché. Think Le Thrifty Foods.

Just outside of downtown Uzès (a short 15min bike ride) is the new'ish InterMarché. As is the case in North America, it's grouped with complementary stores - so there's also a pharmacy and a Bricomart (a.k.a. Le Home Hardware).

It's always interesting seeing what other countries have in their grocery stores (even going to the US is fun - wine! fun cereals! Payday chocolate bars!). France is no different (and neither were Germany, Austria, Luxemburg or Italy, we just decided to wait until France to blog about it).

The biggest thing we've had to get over is picking up an item and turning the label around looking for the English. Ahhh, such is the reflex of Western Canadians eh?

The tinned fish aisle is extensive. And not just for types of fish in cans. The photo we took below is just the selection for sardines!


And equally as impressive as the sardine stack selection is the sensational sweetened cereal sampling (nice alliteration eh?). And not specifically sugared kids cereal (well, yes on the kid part) but the sweetness is specifically chocolate. And all types - milk, dark, filled, covered...endless ways to turn your morning milk a lovely shade of cocoa.


And speaking of milk (sans cereal here) - here's a shot below of the milk aisle.


Yes, no refrigerator here - the majority of the milk selection is shelf-stable. Even some of the plastic bottles in the cooler section have 'best-before' dates five to six weeks in the future.

But back to chocolate. Hazelnut and chocolate to be exact. Nutella and any reasonable facsimile of is in plentiful supply here in France. How popular? It's like our peanut butter - a giant selection.

Need an example?
- top shelf, small light-blue lid, that's the peanut butter (skippy, smooth, to be exact). The rest of the display is for chocolate-hazelnut spreads.


And what has now become a tradition with us, a quick snap of an unusual (well, for us) potato chip flavour. This time - smoked ham:


But if all the dizzying array of foreign foods is making your shopping head spin - there is a section to bring a little bit of home and comfort to the expats.

The British food aisle:


But waaaaaaait.......this ain't no Brit product!


I wonder if someone is writing a blog about Thrifty Foods and the fact we keep our eggs in the cooler (did I mention their eggs are on the shelf?)....or that our milk dies in ten days....or a household would actual buy and use 1kg of peanut butter...

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