Ever wonder how much food costs in Switzerland? Look no further! I went to my local grocery store (which is literally 100m from our apartment!), and attempted to take pictures of all the items I thought you might find interesting. While taking a few pictures in the produce aisle, an employee rudely told me I couldn't take any pictures... I thought that might put a wrench in my blogging plans, but I decided to make a handy table with all the prices listed instead! Who needs pictures, when you can have tables and charts? Right?
First off, the prices for Canada are in Canadian dollars, and the prices for the Swiss items are in Swiss Francs. For simplicity's sake, $1 equals 1 Franc. The Swiss Franc is worth more (1.00 CAD = 1.51 CHF). However, wages are higher in Switzerland, so it compensates for the higher price tag for living. All of the Swiss prices listed are from the Coop, one of the two big grocery store chains here. As for the Canadian prices, they are taken from the No Frills website. I had trouble finding organic meats at No Frills, so I found prices from a local store in Ontario that has organic meats. When choosing the meat items to compare prices, I didn't list any sale prices. Everything listed is full price. Obviously, sizes of packages vary quite a bit, but I listed prices based on weight or volume.
The results were quite shocking to me! Take a look for yourself:
Where's the cheese?? It was a little more complicated to add cheese prices since they can vary quite a bit, and cheese over here is all "specialty" types. You can't buy a big brick of cheddar here like you can in Canada. In general, I find the cheese here quite a bit cheaper than in Canada. For example, some of the more conventional mild cheeses from the cheese counter are under 2 Francs per 100g. We are really enjoying trying all the different cheeses here!
For those interested about the wine beer here, first off, Justyn will soon be updating us about some of the beers that he has tried during our last 2 months here. Generally speaking, beer and wine are cheaper here. For example, the local beer here, Feldschlösschen, is on sale this week for 27.60, for 24 cans of 500ml. From what I can tell from price checking online, that's about the cheapest price one could buy 24 bottles (355 ml) of beer for in Ontario. You can buy a good bottle of wine for dinner here for around 10 Francs. I've seen them as low as 6.50!
So, is it truly that much more expensive to eat in Switzerland compared to in Canada? From my conclusions, based on the regular things that we eat, prices of things here are quite comparable to Canada. The meat is quite pricey, especially red meat. However! My mom always taught me to shop the sales, and here is no different. I can often get a pack of 5 big sausages (800g) for 5 francs, or meat 50% off when it is approaching it's consumption date. Since our fridges here are so tiny, we shop every day or every second day, which makes the quick sale table our best friend! With rising food prices in Canada, what are some things that you and your families do to cut down on grocery costs?
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