The cost of food in Europe.....

Oldernotwiser

I have friends who live in France and they tell me that there are several companies that regularly bring Tesco deliveries (and others) down by van. Apparently it's still worth doing, even with the 15/20% mark up these companies charge.

Bongedone

Funny but I found Greek Total yogurt and Kalamata olives are both more expensive in Greece than here.

andrewmp

It's probably just the Euro exchange rate.

DCFC79

From when i was last abroad i found food not too pricey but i did find quality of fruit etc to be better than here

emsybob

I live in Spain on the costa blanca in a semi tourist resort and i find that the prices here are more expensive than the uk, mainly because there isnt the competition between supermarkets and the choices are very limited.
For example a jar of dolmio sauce is around 3.50E
A jar of patacks curry sauce is 4.00E
I no these are english products but there is no Spanish equivilant.
So i found that i couldnt cook when i moved here 2 years ago but i can now.
I make everything from scratch but it still isnt that cheap.
I own a bar so i no the prices of products inside out, in our cheapest local supermarket Mercadona our whole chickens are 1.84 a kilo, chicken breast is 4.90 a kilo, pork joint is 3.90 a kilo, a small tin plum tomatoes 0.55. 12 pack of coke 5.95. Tomatoes today were 1.35 kilo. Pizza supermarket make 12" 2.39
The best value thing i find is the wine. I pay 1.29cents a bottle of red riocca n its really nice. All wine is cheap.
Also bogofs dont exist or 3 for 2.
A bottle of evlive shampoo 250ml is arounf 4.00 and a sure 350ml deodorant around 5.00. And these are spanish products not imported from england. Also there are no pound shops etc we have todos shop run by chinese that are like the very downmarket pound shops selling tourist rubbish n the odd over priced shampoo.
I feel like a child in a sweetshop when i return to england for a holiday and browse the isles of tesco asda and the rest.
Oh n wages are poor here to around 5.50 an hour. So it doesnt go very far!

pennymakespounds

emsybob ..... absolutely spot on !! ... exactly the comments i made in my posting number 9 above.

Your dolmio / ragu .. and pataks .. can always be bought somewhere for £1 .... own label bolog sauce as low as 40p !! .

Tesco reduced 3 litre fresh milk from a very cheap £1.35 to an insane 75p today !!

Today ...
Bought gran sugar 1kg at 2 for £1 in farmfoods

2 loaves hovis 800gm for £1 also there ... and uk bread in spain/tenerife over £2.50 a loaf i guess.

24 marshall breakfast biscuits (made by & same as weetabix) .. 99p ( i pay over £3 for weetabix in mercadona tenerife. )

All uk brand toiletries are nearly double uk price as you show .. yet here amongst the big 4 .. and boots/savers etc .. you can practically buy any brand at bogof somewhere sometime within a month .

Soap powders .. always get something at 10p a wash .. three times more abroad . .. for the brands ..

and so it goes on .. and on .

I say again .. uk public just don't realise how cheap our groceries are .

I always expect the fruit &veg abroad to be brilliant quality & dirt cheap .. yet never found it .. completely the opposite .

can't believe how lousy tenerife banana quality is !!

joeyboy

I think it's highly variable to be honest, though I've noticed no countries I've been to have the offers in stores we do, every isle of a supermarket here is full of BOGOF, 50% extra free, you don't see much of that abroad.

However in Turkey I found quite a bit of stuff was cheaper, this was back in 2003-2004 I'd estimate. I could buy 2ltr bottles of fanta(mandarin flavour or something, amazing!) for the equivalent of around 50p, some of the snack foods were cheap. I found the tinned goods could be more dear, though it depended on what tinned product you were talking about. The fresh fruit and veg however was a lot cheaper, I imagine because they import less and work more on what's in season. Some of the meat was cheaper too, though other meats where noticeably more pricey, again probably effected more by what was available nationally.

Almo

Kayteehee wrote: »

Many people in Australia are currently undertaking the challenge, not just one man. My friend is doing it at the moment too. I think it must be even harder in Australia because food in the supermarket is much more expensive than here, due to drought etc.

I lived their for nine months and found it was quite difficult to shop on a budget, especially as a vegetarian.

I think it depends on what you buy - bread and cereals are hugely expensive, as are processed/frozen foods. We've found that things are much more seasonal or that they just fluctuate more wildly than when we lived in the UK - in our local supermarket (a national chain) I can, at the moment, get red peppers for $1.50/kg which I think is probably cheaper than the UK, but can't be sure. OTOH, they have recently been as much as $8.99/kg. The same thing happens to cucumbers, apples, potatoes, leeks etc. I think we once worked out that overall, our particular shopping habits are about equal to what we would spend in the UK although there are very few products that are equivalent prices.

As others have said, it depends on the overall cost of living and salaries. My bread will cost me a lot more than yours, but my drive to the supermarket will be a lot cheaper than yours ($1.11/litre atm). Swings and roundabouts!

roses

Cyprus was cheap up til they switched to the €. They switched when their £CYP was at the absolute highest against the € so for Cypriots, they find Europe cheap but us Uk people find everywhere in Europe that charge € expensive now

maman

I don't know about Cyprus but in France it's apparently illegal to sell anything below cost price so they don't have the loss leaders/offers that we have in UK.