The Enigma of Grocery Shopping in Bavaria

enigma

ɪˈnɪgmə

noun

1. 1.

   a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand.

A few months ago, early into our new journey, we posted about the various types of stores available for groceries depending on what you are looking to buy. It is time to update this story line since I feel like I am more informed and experienced than before. I got it all figured out.......but not really. The enigma for me is not just figuring out how it all works, but also the difference in how people behave in this environment, and the shopping habits that I have observed. It is just weird.

To recap, you have various grocery chains that have food type groceries, refrigerated and freezer stuff, fresh fruits and vegetables, other common eat at home food stuff. None of these are the same, or carry the same type of stuff. Aldi is known to be a low cost, "cheap" grocery place. Most of them are small and have very limited selection. Tenglemann is similar in size and has a little bit larger selection and more common brands available. Neither of those places have things like shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, cooking oil, baking goods, a deli counter, or meat counter, etc.

Usually the Aldi or Tengelmann stores are in a shopping areas and right next door is a "drogerie" which translates to drug store. I know what you are thinking, Walgreens or CVS right, well kind of. How about a Walgreens with no pharmacy and no OTC drugs or anything medical related (maybe band aids), no refrigerator section to grab a gallon of milk, or freezer section for a bag of ice. I think most other things they have similar to Walgreens. Rossmann and DM are the two big chains that you see around this area. You would go by the drogerie first to get your bathroom and shower stuff, dishwasher and kitchen cleaning products, laundry detergent, etc; then go to the Tenglemann next door for food.

But what if you need some OTC medicine or a pharmacist? Well walk across the street or down a few doors and you will find your neighborhood "apotheke", translates to pharmacy. I have been to a few of these and in most cases everyone speaks pretty good English. In one case the lady spoke English but could not understand me too well. I had to write down what I was asking for, she had never heard of Tylenol and could not understand me when I said acetaminophen. The beauty of the apotheke is the ability to go in and tell them your need and they can address it without you having to visit a doctor. Over Christmas in France I had a cold so I told them my symptoms and they gave me what I needed. Maybe not the best example since a pharmacist in the US would do the same thing with OTC medicine. The word is that you can get the good stuff too if you are convincing enough. I have not had that need yet, so I will let you know.

A few doors down from there is the local butcher shop to get the best meats and a few doors down from there is the fresh fruit stand. You get the idea, there are a lot of specialty stores for the various things you need.

Okay, so you people in the US make a trip to Wal-Mart or Target and I have to go to three or four stores. This was how I understood life was going to be early on, before we moved into our house in Unterschleissheim. Prior to the move we found out about Kaufland. I was very excited about the Kaufland, after all it translates to "PURCHASE COUNTRY". It is big, they have a good fresh fruit and veggie aisle, baking supplies and mixes, canned stuff, extensive freezer and refrigerated aisles, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, etc. This was going to be an almost one stop shop going forward. Well, if I ended it here than I would have to change my posting title and remove my definition.

I soon realized this was not the ideal store for everything I needed and for other reasons. Yes, Kaufland is very busy all of the time but I can deal with that. I have been forced to adjust my Texas raised courtesy practices and replace them with a survival of the fittest mentality. Most of the other customers here have no sense of private space. They do not wait for you to move. They will bump into you, reach across your cart or just cut you off to get whatever they are after. You never see any children here, not even small infants. The few times that I have had one or both children with me it has been difficult to manage.

In general in Germany, I don't think there is such a thing as line etiquette. Just because you are in the queue does not mean you are going to go before the other people behind you, or people not even in line yet. This Kaufland place enables some bad line behavior. I go to this store once or twice a week. Just about every time I will wait in line with my basket full of groceries and someone will go around to the other side of the line, the area where you exit, and show the register person they only have one or two items. The employee will sometimes ask the next person in line if it is okay to help this other person real quick, but usually they are already scanning the items as they ask. The next person really has no option to say no. If these people are not so bold to go around to the exit they sure don't mind saddling up behind you and huffing until you notice them. As soon as you turn around they shove their one or two items in your face as they move in front, while "asking" if they can go ahead of you. If I have already started unloading my cart onto the conveyor they will just stand behind you huffing about it, to make sure you know they are waiting. To these people I ask, why the hell are you here for only one or two items? This place always has too few check out lines open and there are always long lines. There is no 8 items or less line, and no self check out line. To these people I say, I DON"T FEEL SORRY FOR YOU. There are several other stores in the immediate area that are much smaller and much less busy.

Here is another example of poor line etiquette. In the US, at least in Texas, when a new lane is opened there is a very orderly polite process to allow the people in front of you the option of switching to the new lane. In most cases it works out well and is a fair process. In the event that this place, Kaufland, actually cares about the eight cart deep lines, and they decide to open another lane, it is a freakin' free for all. So the other day I am ready to check out. They have three lanes open and everyone is in the main middle aisle eventually separating into the lanes. I pull a great move and walk to the left side behind the ice cream aisle and emerge on the other side in the far left line. Jackpot, instead of being in the eight cart deep, not really a line yet area, I have managed to be in a five cart deep line. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Soon after the lines got even worse. There was a guy behind me huffing, to let me know he only had a couple of items, I suppose waiting for me to offer to let him go in front of my overfilled cart. As we waited about four more carts got behind me. Then I made the mistake of looking down at my phone. Just as I did, a new cashier walked to a previously closed aisle and started to open it. They guy behind me bolted for her and the others behind him were running over each other to get into this new line. By the time I realized what was happening it was too late. That line was instantly longer than the line I was in. Four people that were behind me were checked out and gone before I finished. I didn't get mad, I see how this works, good to know. To these people I say something else. Watch out next time, the gloves are off and I now know the rules.

The gloves are off in the parking lot too. You have to be cautiously aggressive if you want to get in and out of this place. I tried to go there on the Monday between Christmas and New Years. The huge parking lot was overflowing, they had several people directing traffic and at the time there was a line to get in. Usually when I go there is plenty of parking and you just have to deal with the craziness inside. If the lot was this full there was no way I was going to test the inside, I might beat someone before getting out of there. I turned around and headed to my second option, the Edeka Center (see below).

So what about all of these people with one or two items. I can tell you that I am in the HEAVY minority being a person with a full cart. I realize that German refrigerators and freezers are small, but come on. More than 70% of the people checking out only have ten items or less. They must go every day and pick up dinner supplies for that night. They think they are so cool with their fresh veggies and other healthy crap. You know, this store does not stock all of this other crap just for me. We are not the only ones eating Pringles and M&M's, so just get over yourself. I decided the people that eat these other things must come at a different time than I do. For a while I felt guilty with my cart full of groceries with assorted healthy and not so healthy items, but not so much any more. I would go insane if I had to stand in that line more than twice a week. It takes this cart full to feed the four people in this house, deal with it fellow Kaufland comrades.

Then there is the constant stocking of aisles.The employees don't seem to care about my shopping experience either, they are there to do a job to stock shelves. Our relocation coordinator told us early on that Germany is not a service country, in other words not known for customer service. These employees will park a pallet full of stock in the middle of the aisle and proceed with stocking the selves, the customers be damned. On one visit the pallet was blocking the aisle on one side and the employee was on a step stool blocking the other exit. She made it clear that I was disrupting her by asking her if I could get by. Most of the time, with each visit, I come across several aisles that my grocery cart will not fit because of pallets in the way. This is not Wal-Mart or Target where they stock in the middle of the night.

For the most part the cashiers are nice at Kaufland. I do recognize most of the them now. There are only a few of them and I know which ones speak English. Some of them know me  now too, so that is kind of cool. I have my process worked out to retrieve my groceries into my reusable bags, get them in the cart, pay, and sign my credit card receipt all in a timely manner. This will continue to be one of the most challenging things to manage at the store. Not having someone put your groceries in sacks with impatient people in line behind you and cashiers that will start scanning the next persons stuff regardless of if you have cleared all of your items and dealing with payment is tough.

After a few visits to Kaufland I realize I cannot find a few things that I want and it was not the end all be all or Germany grocery shopping. Flour tortillas for example. Germany has them, the duren doner or doner kebab is a popular Turkish food item that consists of fresh shaved pork from a rotisserie that is placed in a flour tortilla with lettuce a garlic sauce and red pepper. There are variations and many food carts all over the place that serve them. You would think you could find flour tortillas. Cindy finds out from people at work that we might try to find a store called REWE, the "w" is pronounced as a "V", sounds like reve. This is another store similar to Tenglemann in size, but has more specialty items and is known to be a more expensive place. I tried it, didn't like it. Very crowded and small aisles, it was more expensive, out of the way from my normal routes, but they did have flour tortillas. Hhmmmm.

On the way to my local Kaufland there is a strip center shopping area that has a couple of clothing stores, a Rossmann drogerie (Walgreens, no drugs, keep up), and a place called Edeka Center. One day I decided to give Edeka a try. It was big, clean, and there were not too many people there. This place has a lot of the things that Kaufland has, but also has flour tortilla, Ritz crackers (never seen those at Kaufland), and some other bulk packages of dinner meats that we like. I was the only person checking out and there was not anyone cutting in line. I really like this place.

Well, just like Kaufland, Edeka has some short comings but for now it is my number two store. Kaufland is definitely cheaper, has a better selection of beer, and some other things items that we have liked. My routine is to go to Kaufland most of the time and hit up the Edeka Center about once a month for some of the things that we like there. Both of the stores are in the same area of town so it is not too hard. Keep in mind that most plastic and glass items you pay a deposit to the respective store and you have to return those empty bottles back to the same store to get your money back. So I get all of our beverages, cokes, beer, water from Kaufland so I only have to remember one place for bottle returns. They have three big automated machines that are usually not a long wait to use. The machines suck in the bottle, read the bar code to confirm it came from them, then transport it away. All the time it is keeping track of how much deposit money I will receive back. I print my little receipt and the cashier applies the credit to my grocery tab.

We still have to go to the apotheke for any medicine and the occasional visit to the drogerie is still in the routine. If we need a lot of that stuff I might go to Edeka and Rossmann is right next door. It has taken a long time to get a comfort level with grocery shopping, but I think I can manage for the remaining time that we are here.