[lgbr]

> Then you get to grocery stores, and you have to go to the “fancy places” to even get the baseline of quality you see in the rest of the developed world. All the chocolate is bad.

While I agree with you on other points, I take issue with this. American grocery stores are a real treat when visiting. Produce is colorful, plentiful, and delicious thanks to American embrace of GMO's and subsidies for farmers. Raw ingredients such as flour are available in huge variety (try finding something as simple as peanut oil at your local Lidl). Even the quality of "junk" food is comparably fantastic, as you won't find a frozen pizza like DiGiorno anywhere else. This is all before you visit a Whole Foods, which takes quality and variety to a point which organic supermarkets elsewhere in the world can't compare.

Europe, on the other hand, is so obsessed with the discount model, so disinterested in variety, and so opposed to GMO's, that their supermarkets are downright frustrating. Yes, the meat, cheese, and chocolate is great, but it stops there.

[manderley]

Lidl is a discount supermarket. It's not about choice, it's about the lowest prices possible with a limited amount of variety available in exchange. There are plenty of other chain supermarkets that have the huge variety of flour (?) you crave.

And "colorful" doesn't mean tasty with produce, unfortunately.

[svrtknst]

Also Lidl, at least in Sweden, does some things amazingly. One of the best shops for produce, for instance, both in quality and price.

[clmul]

Indeed, I'm not sure whether I would call Lidl in the Netherlands a discount supermarket, food and especially produce like you say is of a high quality, compared to other supermarkets. Usually they don't even have the lowest prices, as other supermarkets also have discount brands which are cheaper, but of lower quality than the cheap products you'd buy in a Lidl.

[screye]

It's funny how both my favorite US supermarkets are German owned. (Aldi for price and Trader Joe's for quality).

The only better one's I've seen are local 1-off stores and sometimes kirkland brand stuff from Costco for good VFM.

[megablast]

Sure, but US supermarkets have ridiculous variety even when you compare it to Tesco's, Sainsburies, Waitrose, G20, LeClerc etc...

[patrickk]

It highly depends on where in Europe you go. If you are using German discount stores as the yardstick for Europe for example, it's a very low bar. The dairy quality is crap, and a lot of the meat doesn't taste great. Carre Four by comparison in Italy or France is in another universe.

[shmageggy]

I have to agree that it depends on specifics. Being used to the famous and beloved Wegman's in the US, I'm finding the Sainsburys and Tescos of my neighborhood in London to be a real disappointment.

[dx034]

London supermarkets tend to have a bit poorer choice as real estate is so expensive. I found choice to improve the further out you go.

[ska]

> Produce is colorful, plentiful, and delicious thanks to American embrace of GMO's and subsidies for farmers.

There are two problems with this statement. One is that the availability of plentiful and colorful produce is very much dependent on where you are in the US, and there are a large number of people who really don't have convenient access to it.

The other is that while produce is generally inexpensive, it is hardly generally delicious. Perfect looking tasteless hothouse tomatoes and peppers etc. are the rule, not the exception in a typical grocery store. Lot's of 'convenience' packaging (e.g. "baby spring mix" boxes), mountains of last years apples, not so much flavor.

If you have the means and live in the right places, you can buy very good produce from farmers markets and specialty stores, but it is expensive; the baseline is often pretty mediocre. And if you don't have the location and time and money to use these alternative sources, that's often what you are stuck with.

The silver lining on all this is that the industrial food system in the US has proven to work well as a very large scale optimization algorithm; unfortunately it's been optimizing on thing like shelf-stability, appearance, shipping convenience and food-science inputs while mostly ignoring flavor and nutritional content (see also why there are so many Holstien cows and so little decent butter). If the consumer demand is there for better food though, it should respond to that also.

[pjc50]

This is kind of hard to square with the whole "food desert" phenomenon: http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defi...

What I suspect is happening is that the "variance" of America is much higher - the nice neighbourhoods are full of vast houses and plentiful food, while down the road the not-so-nice areas are way below what would attract some sort of social intervention in Europe.

The UK has a smaller version of the same effect, containing some of the poorest (well, lowest GDP) regions in Europe. https://fullfact.org/economy/does-uk-have-poorest-regions-no...

[jacobush]

The corn economy in the US is highly perverted, and that is just the tip of an iceberg. Agreed somewhat about Lidl, I'd be very frustrated if Lidl was the only place I could buy stuff in Sweden.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

There’s a Lidl opening nearby, soon (I live in New York).

[mariorossi666]

> is so obsessed with the discount model,

It is really not.

Nobody goes to LIDL to buy food, unless has some real money problem.

You have to make a different comparison: buy quality food from a local farmer and the same food from a local European farmer.

You will notice that in Europe is much more common than you think, it can usually be found in the local market in your neighborhood and it's much cheaper than in the US.

> the meat, cheese, and chocolate is great, but it stops there.

Basically every kind of raw food, except maybe for raw meat, in Europe taste better.

Including vegetables and fruit.

[dx034]

Oh, I just learned I have a money problem. Never heard that before. Sure, many Lidl products aren't great in quality, but some are definitely comparable with food bought elsewhere (at a much lower price). And buying non-local produce at a farmers market doesn't really make that much sense.

[mariorossi666]

> Oh, I just learned I have a money problem

Sorry, not trying to be disrespectful, I was referring to where I live: Italy.

They usually don't even sell fresh food here and when they do, they are not much cheaper than the better alternatives.

[burntoutfire]

> Nobody goes to LIDL to buy food, unless has some real money problem.

Then I guess most of Poland has "real money problems", as LIDL and equivalents is where we shop. However, I think it's just that we don't like to overpay for stuff.

[mariorossi666]

LIDL is a discount from Germany, it is spread over northern continental Europe and especially the eastern block.

If you compare it to other western supermarket chains like Carrefour, or Auchan, their food is of a lower quality, despite being not much cheaper.

LIDL is convenient for packaged or canned food or "everything not related to food", but it's a discount, not exactly popular for quality.

Even Simply, the discount branch of Auchan, sells better food than LIDL. At least in this part of Europe.

And they are all of lower quality than Esselunga or Coop or Conad (but that could just be the Italian in me talking).

But honestly I've never been at LIDL in Poland, maybe it's better over there.

On a side note: many Polish people have a real money problem.

The average Polish salary is below 1k euros, while in Germany is over 2.5k euros.

[ClumsyPilot]

You've got a point about GMO-fobia in Europe, but it's a tangential problem.

[tobias3]

There are already 1873 German Aldi discounters in the US. Maybe it's not where the HN croud buyes their stuff (that would be trader joe's ;) ). But there is a way to get cheap fresh produce in the US now.

[unknownunknowns]

Unfortunately we don't have Aldi yet in the bay area, which makes up for a good proportion of HN readers. However we do have Grocery Outlet, which IMO is the best discount grocer in the US, having previously lived in the midwest and southeast.

[4ad]

Absolutely agreed, To add to that, I will post a link to a comment I made in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21256125.