Grocery Shopping

Well the overall activity is very much the same as back home, there are some things that are so different that I thought I'd dedicate a post to it.

The shopping carts that require money to be unlocked.

First, when you walk into the store, you notice that there are the regular big shopping carts, then the small hand held ones that you can attach to carrier and push rather than carry.  The small are free, and the large require a deposit!  Yes! You have to pay just to use a shopping cart. Most stores require either 5-10krona which is $.50-1.00 is USD.  Once you return the shopping cart where it belongs, you will receive your money back. They do this so that the carts are returned where they belong and not just anywhere like back home.  Not a bad idea after all.  

The food sold for the most part seems to be pretty similar.  However, the produce section is MUCH smaller. And the fresh meat section is larger. The vegetables are smaller and tend to be a lot more expensive then what you would pay in the US. However, it may be because everything seems to be very fresh.  This is good, however food expires quicker.  Swedes tend to shop daily rather than monthly or bi-weekly like I do back home because foods are not as processed here so you must eat them quickly. You can't store for very long.

Another thing that I noticed is that portions are a lot smaller.  The largest soda sold is 1 liter.  They don't sell 6 or 12 packs.  Milk is sold in 1 or 1.5 liters, no gallons.  Being that no one is over weight here, I'm guessing people just don't over eat!  

A tiny sample of the milk section

Most of the food has pictures on it, so that is how I have been able to get by so far. However, I have had to come home a few times and google items. For example, milk is sold in so many varieties. I didn't know which was best for Jayden until I googled it and realized 3% is like whole milk back home. It's all just going to take time to get used to.  I also bought what I thought was tomato sauce but ended up being diced tomatoes

Bread and cheese are very popular items. You don't find processed bread very often. Usually its baked fresh and comes in many varieties. The cheese section is very large.  They like it with meat and yogurt in the morning or with crackers as an evening snack.  Although the section is large I can't find cheddar, colby jack, or mozzarella.  Everything they have here I'd say is the "fancy" type. Yuck!  Another strange variety is cheese in toothpaste like tubes. They have all sorts of flavors such as shrimp and other seafood, none of which sound appetizing to me.

The tubed cheeses

You see little snack items and things that we'd say are "unhealthy" back home. I mean they do have cookies, chips, and other stuff. Just not as much as back home. For the most part, Swedes eat very healthy.  However, they LOVE their candy. The candy (loose and packaged) is unreal and part of every grocery store.  I guess everyone needs a little goodness in their life :)

Only 1/4 of the candy section in our neighborhood store

Lastly, the checkout experience...When you get up to the line you notice the cashier is sitting down. How is she going to bag my items sitting down? Hmm..She's NOT!  They have bags at the beginning of the line. Why?  Because in order to save waste and encourage recycling, you have you pay for each bag that you use. They provide small and flimsy produce bags if you opt out of buying some or forget your own.  They also request that you line up your items with the barcodes facing the cashier so she can scam quicker. You wait at the end, bag your own groceries and off you go. Kinda odd, but we do what we're asked.

I forgot to state, the government controls the alcohol sales so you won't find hard alcohol in the grocery stores. All that they sell is beer at a lower alcohol content percentage. In order to buy all other alcohol you have to go to a government owned alcohol store. And once you purchase alcohol, it's bagged in a purple bag so everyone knows what you purchased. Guess that's like the brown paper bag back home!

All in all, I learn something new everytime I go shop but these are the things I felt different enough to share :)