Carrefour – A Gastronomical Hypermarche

We are fairly fortunate in that there is a small grocery store across the street from us, however it is very small and the selection is quite limited.  The store is called Carrefour City, and it is slightly larger than your average corner store in Canada…

AK needed diapers, and due to our recent electrical incident, we also needed a hand held blender to make her baby food.  So we went off in Search of a full size Carrefour.  For those of you have not been to France, this store is basically like a Superstore and sells everything from clothes to computers … and even food.

As you can see from the above picture, the outside of this store is nothing special, in fact it’s quite hard to find until you walk right up to the entrance.  Why? Well, the store is actually slightly below ground, and the roof is a small park with a children’s playground.  The whole thing is covered in grass with a few ball courts too!  What a great idea!  This is certainly something you wouldn’t see at Superstore or Walmart in Canada!

Inside there were all the usual superstore type products both food and otherwise, but a few things really stuck out for us:

• Yogurt – There were 4 aisles dedicated to yogurt (and not organic, that was in another aisle…)
• Milk – often gets sold in sealed, non-refrigerated packages…
• Produce – you weigh it yourself and put a printed label on the bag
• cheese – about a third of the price charged in Canada

The other thing we found interesting was that you could take a small handheld scanner with your shopping cart, and you scanned everything yourself as you put it into the cart. When you left the store, you simply handed over the scanner with your total to a cashier and they would take your money.

The metro trip home felt quite long carrying over one hundred diapers and a backpack full of food.  We won’t be going here on a daily basis, hopefully every second week if possible.  The savings are significant but it takes a long time to get there and back.