Grocery Shopping

You can take you dog to dinner at a nice restaurant but you can't take him in the grocery store.

You can take you dog to dinner at a nice restaurant here in Germany, but you can’t take him into the grocery store.

I did my Saturday morning honey-do list today and part of it included going by the local market and picking up a few groceries. Inspired by Jane’s Facebook post, I decided to share my shopping pics with everybody for critical analysis and derision. All prices shown include tax, so there’s no surprise at the register. You bring your own grocery sacks to the store or you grab an empty box from the box bin. You have the option to purchase plastic bags at checkout (if you want to stand out like a fart in an elevator). This is a neighborhood market, not one of the larger grocery stores in the area, so the prices are a bit higher because of that, but you can still get a feel for the local grocery economy.

: That’s my euro size token (which resides on my keyring) for unlocking shopping carts. You get your token (or euro coin) back when you return the cart and chain it back to the bunch.

: Coin inserted. Locking mechanism releases. You may now proceed to shop.

: One euro per kilogram

: They’re a euro per kilogram just to keep it simple.

: Straight out of Holland. Fresh on the vine. One and a half euro per kilogram.

: One euro per kilo

: 500 grams at 1.11 euro equals 2.22 per kilogram.

: One and a half euro per bunch.

: The Golden Delicious variety is in the house.

: All different kinds. I’m surprised to see so many at the local market since a lot of my neighbors have apple trees. They’re everywhere. I pick them up off the ground and feed them to my horse.

: One euro per kilo. I see a trend developing.

: Two euro fifty per kilo.

: A lot of people use these to mix drinks with. I just like them as a novelty. My favorite is sold in Holland. It’s a cheap knock-off of Red Bull, appropriately named, Bullit. There are no deposit charges in Holland, but a helluva lot more litter.

: Six, one liter bottles. Price shown includes deposit. The coke is .63 per liter. The bottle deposit is .25 PER BOTTLE. You’re definitely not throwing them away.

: Pricing on one and one and a half liter bottles. These are the tougher plastic bottles instead of the poly type bottles which are a bit cheaper.

: “Genuine American Taste” is their motto. I buy it anyway. Note the bottles are 1.5 liter instead of 1.0 in the “real” Coke six packs. Still have that horrible deposit charge, but bottom line is .27 per liter.

: Roughly two and a half euro for two and a half liters of ice cream. You do the math.

: Always sold in one kilo packages. One size fits all.

: One liter. You will occasionally find two liter packaging. I’ve never seen a “gallon” size of milk for sale here.

: Breaks down to 4.80 euro per kilogram.

: These look to be the cheapest eggs for sale.

: Two euro. Cheaper, less politically correct, egg option. Local farmers will deliver eggs, milk, butter and potatoes directly to your house here, so there’s that…

: Six for two euro. These are apparently the filet mignon of eggs.

: 500 grams for 3.33 That’s four and a half bucks US$ for 1.1 pound of coffee.

: Ninety percent of the people here (myself included) buy coffee pads for their coffee machines (or whole beans for their fancy grinder machines). We get both types in Holland where it is cheaper.

: Kellogs “Frosties”. They’ve even got Tony the Tiger.

: A liter of milk and a box of musli cereal gets you breakfast for three days for under a euro per meal.

: They just looked too good not to take a picture of.

: They love their white asparagus over here. These are the minis. You can get the ‘bits and pieces” packaging even cheaper.

: I bought up all the canned green asparagus they had last year and they never restocked them.

: I think they sell a four pack for a euro and a half.

: They had Palmolive, but this is a favored brand here and it’s a bit cheaper as well.

: I’m going back and getting some of this to see how it compares with Guinness Dark.

: One of several options in the beer and cola mix category.

: You can fool some of the people….

: Looks like lime, lemon and raspberry flavors are covered here.

: I probably wouldn’t have to look that hard to find kiwi flavored beer. Good Lord, make it go away!

: Uncle Ben made the trip to Germany, but to find Aunt Jemima, you have to jump the border to Holland.

: More like macro-rape popcorn. Those are single serving bags for a euro. And take care you don’t get the SWEET, sugar flavored crap (on the right) either! I buy my microwave popcorn in Holland. Box of three for a euro fifty. Something like that.