The Weekly Shop

I do not miss the self-checkout loudly announcing “Unexpected item in bagging area”, whereupon everyone in the shop glares at you, clearly an apprentice-shoplifter.  I have not come across a self-checkout in Bermuda supermarkets.

Last week’s shop

Prices in $, 1$ =60p approx.

Meat  slightly +++

Vegetables ++

Sliced bread ++++

Chocolate +++++

Bill total : $250 approx.

 

 

There is an excellent website: Bermuda4U that gives a brief line on each of the main supermarkets on Bermuda and contact details with addresses are to be found at Bermuda.com.  In summary there are around 20 small independent variety stores and then 6 larger businesses  – Lindo’s, Marketplace, Supermart, Miles Market, Arnolds and Harrington Hundreds.  While I have given you links to websites, don’t get your hopes up ….. there is no online grocery shopping and no home delivery for your weekly shop. 😦

If I am honest I probably do miss that aspect

 

 

My first experience in a Bermuda supermarket was akin to an attack of social anxiety – I didn’t know the rules, didn’t recognise the labels, and some items I didn’t even recognise as foods (these I later discovered are Christophenes, PawPaws and Cassava roots). In an English-speaking country how could it be so different?

• you don’t need coins or tokens for the trolleys
• but you do need coins for tipping the bag packer ($1-2)
• bag packers are a wonderful luxury
• blue plastic bags are for recycling (see previous post)
• paper bags will be doubled up, they don’t always have handles 
  

  should I tip this one?

   

• best to take your own re-usable bags – 3or 4 for one week’s shop
• wine has to go into a brown paper bag inside a bigger brown paper bag
• meat and veg go into small clear plastic bags first
• produce is seasonal
• buy two of things you like, it might not be there next week

For a British colony (Overseas Territory for the pedantic) I was surprised at the predominance of American products: Nestle, Heinz, Kraft, Kellogs.  It did not take me long, however, to find that Supermart stocks a limited range of Waitrose products – I go there if I feel a little homesick, or is it the other way round, hard to say, I have already confessed I am overwhelmed by some supermarket trips.  It’s the choice that seems so paralysing, being faced with even just two varieties of laundry detergent can be so hard if neither is a familiar name. Some names actually parachute me into my childhood memories – Tide, for example (some of my older readers will be certain it is still on the UK shelves – just checked, not in Ocado at any rate).

My Bermuda trolley looks quite different from my UK trolley but gradually it has become my “usual” weekly shop.

Frozen peas in boxes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have discovered I like spaghetti (after 50 years), that UK bacon is so much nicer, even if it does come from Denmark, that black-eyed peas taste better then the music, that cassava pie is not to my taste, and that I really really miss Cadbury’s chocolate (available but would require a bank loan)

The grocery scene may be changing here though – when we first arrived which was not every long ago really, nothing much opened on Sunday but now MarketPlace are open 9-7 and some of the smaller places are open in the afternoon.  Harrington Hundreds has just announced it will open on Sunday mornings rather than the afternoon as apparently thats what its customers prefer.  The biggest change appeared in January this year, to an almost silent fanfare – alcohol can now be sold on Sundays, thanks to the Liquor Licence Amendment Act 2013, but not after 9pm on any day of the week.  Still you will not find Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Wallmart on Bermuda because only locally owned companies can set up a business.  But then what is the point of living abroad if I insist on English bread and butter?