USA vs Switzerland | Grocery Shopping Differences

hey guys welcome back to how to Switzerland Sarah here today and in today's video we are in the streets Zurich it's raining it's not the best weather today it's been really icky lately so today we are going to go inside Switzerland's two most popular grocery stores they are coupe and negro so we are gonna go just show you guys around and we are gonna point out some things that are just a little bit different in Swiss grocery stores so let's go okay so we are just about here and I want to let you guys know we actually did our grocery shopping yesterday so we aren't gonna be buying a whole lot we just were in town and wanted to show you inside two of the big stores in Zurich but by the way I should point out there are all sorts look at how pretty I just I just can't um there are all sorts of grocery stores in Switzerland in Zurich you have super budget like all the Lidl even like cheaper stuff like autos they sell groceries like there's all sorts of all sorts of different types of grocery stores for every budget whatever you're looking for and then they also go super high-end you know you have a place called Globus Globus foods mano-a-mano food so you have just about everything here but we tend to shop at me girl cope which is where I would say like your every Swiss person tends to shop of course there's a market for all of them but it's just up to people where they want to shop so that's why we're showing you meager on coke because I personally think they're the most popular so first thing I can point out that it's different is as you can see we went down an escalator and we are kind of in a basement we're underground and it's quite common so it's learn to see big full-size grocery stores underneath department stores are just kind of in the downstairs area whereas in the US I don't really recall ever being in like a Macy's or something and then going down the stairs and they have a full-blown grocery store but in Switzerland it's quite common you'll see a lot of coke and me grow especially the bigger of a city that you're in the higher chance that the grocery stores will be downstairs I did see that in New York with like Target but I don't recall ever seeing like a Whole Foods or like a standard kind of grocery store being in a cellar like this but you don't really you don't really notice it's bright it's well-lit so insulin if you are buying fruits or vegetables like individually not in the packages you do have to weigh them yourself I've never done this in the so this was a noodle for me in the US they always kind of did it at the checkout like right on the scale let's see here this is all packaged but say let's see here say you're buying here broccoli so you pick up your broccoli you put it in like a bag or musical bag or no bag or whatever you just put it on the scale and type in 1 7 2 and then you got your price tag and you take it to the cost of the cash register like that if you don't do it you're gonna have to probably run back and do it I don't think they can do it for you at the checkout like they typically do in the US but you know you can buy a good amount of things kind of unpackaged here there's potatoes you can bag up yourself or or Kerris which is really good for like me and Mattias because we're just two people so it helps us reduce waste if we just buy exactly what we need one thing I really like about so it's grocery stores is that they settled sweet corn on the cob so here's one thing that I think is quite different this is like the grab and go section that basically grocery stores everywhere are gonna have and so it funded it just seems so healthy you know here they have like couscous salad healthy particularly grocery store but the stuff just seems to me a lot healthier than what they have in the US and it's really not that expensive for Switzerland they have tons of like vegan options around yeah generally pretty good healthy grabbing though options I mean look here you can even just grab a vegan vegan sandwich ban in Switzerland it's not hard to be vegan inserts with lots of options that sandwich is 550 which is kind of kind of tricky for a cold sandwich but at least there's an option another difference in switz banks are generally smaller this is what they have and we are in the city center in a big cult so this is you know relatively standard what you're gonna find not as many sugar cereals they have right next door a whole bunch of healthier options what they call muesli and all that kind of stuff let's check a price here so you have some reference some cinnamon toast crunch 365 tiny little box 375 grams another thing insulin and also just Europe in general is that they use logo which is really nice yeah it is it's for the EU so it's often done like a lot of random things but it makes it really helpful if you're vegan there's also a vegetarian label that looks very similar the bread sections are also very different in sweats alone because you have a lot less sliced bread which they actually tend to call toast here in Switzerland a little that loaf is most people don't like this their go-to bread like in the US and my experience you know most households like if you say to somebody go buy bread at the story they might come back with a loaf of like you know something like this at least in my house that's how we grew up that's what I knew bread was until I moved here but here this is definitely the kind of bread that people eat you know so you have all sorts of lovely baguettes grab-and-go I mean this is this is beautiful you also have this is all like fresh-baked you know has to get moving right away but if you want that fresh-baked kind of feel garlic pre-baked and I generally find she's to actually be relatively affordable compared to the US about one thing I can watch lying about is total food this taco business six I mean I know it's a big pack still tofu here is we more expensive we used to get a brick this size and Trader Joe's for like 2 bucks but this is amazing ready amazing the in section cope has the best vegan stuff you guys you can get absolutely everything if you're looking for vegan or vegetarian meat for whatever reason I mean you can get absolutely everything here I just saw this is new get on the grill like sausages for the grill we have vegan fish sticks we have vegan steak I mean they have mad options for slips on if you're looking for something to grill this summer this is probably what I would recommend it's from Denmark this is a big in a meteor like they say what is that called again grumpy by this one instead of the preformed burgers it's a better value you can just make your own burgers out of this all right that's enough of coke we're in the department store area now we're gonna film the rest in me grow it's right next door I know a lot of you guys watching and watch these videos because you're moving here you're in the process if that's you let me know your story down below are you moving to Switzerland to Zurich for school for work I want to get to know you let me know your story in the comments okay and we will continue the video in negro another major difference is in Switzerland and probably everywhere in Europe you have to put into the heart actually last summer at Negro we didn't have a coin so I went to give them like 27 or two in here for demonstration purposes another thing you'll notice especially if you're coming from the US is the general lack of like sales like promotional prices in America there's always like buy one get one free and like buy three get one for free and like points and all just kind of stop and in Switzerland cope and me grow do have like point collection systems but the sales are not as common they have these things called like accion and they'll put like five things together and like lower the price a little bit but generally prices our prices there's no coupons like from the manufacturer that you're getting like the Sunday newspaper that kind of stuff if there is it's like not a lot and not comparable to the US I used to do like Extreme Couponing so I know how the coupons are in the US you're not gonna really find that here but I kind of honestly I prefer it I prefer like everyday honest low pricing as opposed to like markup and then you have to shop the sale fires coupon so yeah so see what I mean here this is 30% off just buy it like that so this is really what you see a lot of in Switzerland this kind of accion so you do save a little bit but you gotta buy more upfront another thing I should mention that's important to know is that most Swiss grocery stores will not have toilets for customers no bathrooms some of them will that have restaurants in them like the bigger ones they might be on a different floor or whatever but if you're just going like to a regular coke me grow Aldi whatever there's more than likely not a customer bathroom so just make sure you plan for that I know coming from the US there's an abundance of like free toilets everywhere that's not necessarily the case here so we saw the cold cereal aisle here's the one and Muro I've already done a whole video on recycling into and I'll link it right here but that's another difference and source grocery stories are specifically always a recycling station so you can recycle light bulbs CDs plastic bottles plastic drink bottles batteries co2 cartridges filters metal aluminum glass new stuff you do music outside of the grocery store so as an American one thing that I found super strange when I first came to Oakland was like the general lack of like I guess snack foods you know like a lot of Americans I grew up with like Chips Ahoy and goldfish and all sorts of like little Debbie's and stuff and I find in swiss lim people are just not into snacks and cookies the same way which is so good because I'm I come in here and I'm not tempted by like crazy like ten flavors of Oreos and like chips away and all that stuff I mean they have cookies they have their own versions of you know their snack foods but snack massive snack culture is not such a thing here no goldfish no cheese's okay now I think I might be hopeful to show you some prices of basic ingredients here's the cheapest flour that they have one kilo for 90 cents cheapest pasta they have they have other stuff other than and budget I'm just showing you you can sape here is 2 kilos of rice Wow ok PACA diapers I'm only seen like two brands here is 44 pampers is 1680 this must be like the store brand here you get 41 for 1180 I never bought diapers in my life I don't know if that's a good price so this is the toilet paper selection right here this is actually what we buy for our house you get 12 rolls for 3 dollars and 30 cents which is a very good price and these are good roll what's really sick and yeah that's one thing I know is overpriced in Switzerland then in America so milk in Switzerland often is UHT so it's not in the frigerator and it's pretty cheap I think compared to the US so this is 1 liter or a dollar 30 of rank 30 about the same Levi here they are so also UHT here's almond milk for 1 liter for 315 of course one of the best things about Swiss grocery stores is all the amazing Swiss chocolate your what's this dark chocolate what's that it's have a ginger wow all sorts of combos that you don't have in the US and also there's combos in the u.s. that you don't have here like I've never seen into it son chocolate mixed with mint or chocolate mixed with peanut butter which are both quite common in the US but here there's a lot of like orange or liqueur or I don't know but also know what you do need to bring your own bags or you have to buy these for 30 cents apiece so we always bring our own bags all right we're done just left me grow time for my final thoughts on Swiss grocery stores as an American living here you guys I really like grocery shopping here because I find that it's just there's less choice but it keeps your life really simple I like that the price is the price there's not so much like couponing and like sales and circular flyers and all this kind of stuff going on like I said they certainly have sales but it's not like this massive massive thing so I find that it's really nice and easy to just like plan our shopping and overall the food here the quality of the food overall is much higher than in the United States if you pick up something here and look at the ingredients it's not necessarily as bad as in the US where everything is loaded with like sugars and a lot of saturated fats and different whatever kind of fats all the bad fats trans fats and everything like that um you certainly have those foods here but overall if you're gonna go buy a pasta sauce it's gonna have you know tomato water oregano salt whatever in it and not like sugar and all this kind of stuff like you have in the US but yeah so if you care about that it is kind of nice here that you don't have to go to a specialty store to get higher-quality food a lot of the food does come from Switzerland again if you pick it up and check on the back where it comes from you'll be surprised how much is Swiss it is a lot a lot of the stuff you find in grocery stores comes from this country comes from Switzerland which is nice I also like personally on a personal level I find it much easier to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle here because I'm not tempted to buy all the junk food all the time that's buy one get one free it like all this just really bad for you no nutritional value kinds of foods of course again you have those here but it's not so advertised pushed in your face 24/7 which I personally like and I am always losing weight like in a healthy way whenever we move back to Switzerland and just living here it's a lot easier because we walk we just are healthier overall so that is it for today's video we hope you guys enjoyed just checking out a Swiss grocery store with us two of them the two most popular ones let us know your thoughts in the comments down below do I miss American grocery stores and junk food and all of that every now and then I definitely do and every time we go back to the US all you want to do he junk and Chinese food and Taco Bell you can't get that in the grocery store but anyways you guys know what I mean so yeah I think quality of life here overall I feel better I eat better and I like that the system that makes it easy for us to do that so yeah look where we are oh my gosh Opera House absolutely beautiful absolutely gorgeous here guys that's it for today's video talk to you later see you next time

Channel: How To Switzerland

Views: 146,077

Rating: 4.8057947 out of 5

Keywords: switzerland, swiss, how to, life in switzerland, move to switzerland, moving to switzerland, sarah nourse, sarah nurse, sara nourse, swiss life

Id: SGbakaKQN9M

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019