5 Ways British and American Grocery Stores Are Very Different

so next time you're in the other country why not play a game of old lockets I think we have back home but they call it something wildly different isn't this fun hello I'm Lawrence and I'm on a quest to uncover all of the memos that Britain and America lost in the pond and one of those memos pertains to grocery stores or should I say supermarkets because that's what we call them in the UK weirdly I've been doing this channel now for about nearly five years and I don't think I've really ever touched on the major differences between grocery stores and supermarkets that is probably because the nauseating experience of walking around said stores is second only to malls I'll be honest with you we get our shopping delivered haven't had to walk into a grocery store in about three years but I did do some research so it's fine and so without further ado let's take a look at five big ways that British and American grocery stores slash supermarkets are so very very different yes layout as you can probably imagine the layout of American grocery stores tends to be slightly different to that of Britain but that makes sense I mean the United States itself is laid out quite differently to Britain I don't just mean it's a different shape I mean it incorporates different shapes I did a video on this basically America is obsessed with rectangles anyway that's not connected to today's video I think this difference might have changed a little bit in recent years for instance is a common practice in both countries now to put the fresh veg right near the entrance section to give this illusion of Health as you walk in and then you walk over to the chocolate and everything falls apart but other than that as you're walking round the stores in both countries you will see the odd different sometimes very odd difference so for instance in some British grocery store slash supermarkets you know you might find the eggs not in the dairy section what's that all about and since I've moved to America that seems to make sense right it's with the cheese it's with the the milk the the whipped cream and sort of genre why is that that does make sense but sometimes you will find things like eggs just you know hanging around with the beans in England and not refrigerated either that's that's a shocking thing for a lot of Americans when they see that the wine section might be found in a different spot or we'd find it in US grocery stores across both countries though it's always going to differ especially depending on the actual store itself so keep an eye out for that and kind of connected to layout is our next entry I've said it before I don't say it again size is not everything that you probably wouldn't believe that if you saw the difference between UK supermarkets and American grocery stores I used to think as a kid that whenever my mom would drag me around Asda which is one of our major supermarkets that that particular supermarket was absolutely huge and then I moved to America and I was equally dragged around Walmart and in recent years the comparison between the two has become quite apt and that is because Walmart owns Asda but the fact remains that Asda most of them anyway are not located within their own zip code postcode where as Walmart it might as well have its own zip code they're absolutely huge they're so large in fact we're just walking around the perimeter is enough for your weekly exercise which I suppose is good considering all of the calories that you're about to buy and because walmart and to a lesser extent Kroger huh absolutely massive that means you have the following in the United Kingdom nationwide you've got the likes of Sainsbury's Tesco Morrison's Asda so we have choice in that regard but once you get inside the stores we probably don't have quite as much to offer as the United States who for instance provide you with about 27 varieties of Coca Cola I haven't tried them all in fact I've barely tried any of them but the rule seems to be that the brighter the packaging the more varieties they'll be and also the brighter the packaging the least healthier it will be so to reiterate American Isles have more variety than British Isles that there was a joke wordplay British Isles you've got it we're good Walmart has such variety you can even buy auto parts that usually at the back of the store which is not the best place between you and me because what have you buying a big hefty tire how are you gonna get that out you could roll it that's true in fact that sounds amazing I might do that next time I'm in Walmart I've just remembered I'm never going back in a Walmart so we're good and I don't drive and speaking of purchases once you get to the till slash cash register there's another chief difference between our two countries I have to admit this one got me long before I moved to the United States when I was visiting the state of Maine in 2004 I walked into a music shop as you do I'd much prefer music shops to supermarkets anyway and I purchased a ukulele I think I talked about this very recently and in doing so of course I looked at the price $15 which would is cheap free I mean don't ever do that again it was good while it lasted but it didn't didn't last very long so I took it at the counter expecting to pay exactly that in in three five dollar bills only to be told you know seventeen dollars thirty two I mean I'm making that number up in hindsight I didn't really get where that additional two dollars came from it and it turns out that sales tax is applied at the point of sale where is in the United Kingdom and what you see on the price tag in the Isle itself is exactly what you'll pay for the item so there's no surprises when you get to the till I should say that you know I think in England even when I'd go grocery shopping I didn't I didn't calculate in my head each item as I went along so I never really had a great idea about what that total was gonna be anyway and it's usually when you're just purchasing single items this problem first arises but anybody that's visiting America from the UK who usually doesn't give a second thought to v8e you will have to give thought to sales tax which is kind of the equivalent here of v80 and like I said that sales tax is not applied to the whole store before you even go in you'll see it applied to your receipt after the fact it's not a huge deal I got used to it you know after a couple of years and one thing I'm still getting used to though is our final entry yes brand differences and I'm not talking about you know this particular brand that you simply can't get an equivalent of in the UK no I'm talking about the exact same object or typically food item that has the same font and everything and look about it but a completely different name take for instance ax vs. legs they're deodorants don't eat them I'm not suggesting these are all food items but if you are a 14 year old boy you know what ax deodorant is or links they are exactly the same thing they both have an X in it much like an inordinate amount of brand differences actually you got TJ Maxx vs. TK Maxx you've got ExxonMobil versus s oh you've got Dove versus galaxy Alexa what they're gonna change your name to I don't I don't have a leg sir that was just a joke but if you're from the US and you go over the UK and you're walking around the shopping aisles and you're looking out for crisp / potato chips and you see one that looks a little bit like Lay's you know lays the American crisp company and it'll be called walkers but it has the exact same font everything else about it is the same except for some of the flavors bear that in mind and some of the chocolate seems to live in an entirely different universe literally in some cases like I said before the British galaxy bar is dove in America Milky Way is three musketeers and Mars is Milky Way it's all one star cluster of monumental differences and of course there are absolutely lows so next time you're in the other country why not play a game of oh look it's I think we have back home but they call it something wildly different isn't this fun you know you might get bored after a while but send me your pictures it will be amazing that's it for this episode let me know in the comments below some of the observations you've made over the differences between a British supermarket and an American grocery store in the meantime if you have another chance to do so please subscribe to my channel so that my videos don't get lost in the pond and a big shout out to all my patrons without who none of this would be possible from the writing to the research to the exercise in Walmart if you would like to become a patron of lost in the pond you can do so at patreon.com slash lost in the pond of course anybody that does so will get access to my secret weekly live stream and anybody that pledges $5 or more a month will get access to not only that but my secret podcast and more until next time happy shopping bye thank you for watching this episode of lost in the pond don't forget to hit my stupid little face to subscribe and please share this video with the world hit me up on Twitter Instagram and Facebook and if you would like to support this channel please do so at patreon.com slash lost in the pond [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Lost in the Pond

Views: 617,064

Keywords: Finding America, Lost in the Pond special, UK Travel, US Travel, British slang, British English, Laurence Brown, American English

Id: vZbnoKS5OK0

Length: 8min 13sec (493 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 13 2020