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0 pointsmupuff12341y ago0 comments

> Much of it is that Americans ostensibly choose to pay more for convenience and availability.

I doubt that convenience and availability is a US only thing. Prices in budget grocery stores like Aldi and Lidl in Europe are still 50-70% cheaper than US prices.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

throwup2381y ago· 2 in thread

Where are you getting your price data from?

IME that may be true for Bucharest or Prague, but definitely not Paris or London. Budget US grocers are much cheaper than nominal US prices so I don’t know why you’re comparing the cheapest in Europe to the average in the US (which, again, has a much less concentrated population leading to less competition). Average prices are higher but the floor in the US is significantly lower.

mupuff1234OP1y ago

A good (albeit anecdotal) source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Grocerycost/

But I was just in Germany and was comparing prices to the HCOL coastal US city I live in.

throwup2381y ago

Every one of the posts I looked at priced in Euros looked like they were significantly more expensive than any shopping trip I ever made at SuperKing or Ranch 99 (in Los Angeles no less). I then went and sorted by top posts for the year and the only post that looks similar to the prices I actually pay was from a shopping trip in Algeria. Only a few posts of people paying €4 for a bunch of pastries and breads are impressive, the rest is just overpriced.

That subreddit is not a reliable source of data or even anecdata.

ryao1y ago

Aldi (Süd) and Lidl are in the US. You can look up Lidl's US prices on its website:

https://www.lidl.com/

To see Aldi's prices, you need to use a mobile application called instacart. It lets phones see the prices in-store at Aldi for the purpose of making shopping lists. It also has another set of prices for those that have food delivered or do "curb side pickup". Those are higher than the in-store prices.

If you compare the prices, do you still believe that food is more expensive in the US than in Europe?

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