I was listening to a video on grocery shopping in Portugal the other day, and the guy was really annoying me. I couldn’t figure out why, and then he said “and they have different stuff each time you go” and I suddenly realized that what was bugging me was, he had no idea why any of the stuff he was saying was true.
And we know how I am about understanding why.
Major grocery chains in Portugal
If you asked most expats what the grocery chains in Portugal are, you’d probably hear ‘the big three’: Lidl, Continente, and Pingo Doce. These are not, in fact, the three biggest chains – though they do seem ubiquitous in the areas most occupied by expats and tourists.
- There are half a dozen companies which are less visible in their own brand, but provide a sort of back-end franchise-ish network to local independent markets. Together, they represent about 1500 stores.
- Auchan (similar to “ocean”, the name comes from its region of origin, Hauts-Champs) is, broadly, a French version of WalMart. When people think of Auchan, they tend to picture Auchan’s “WalMart Superstore” type facilities, of which there are a little over 100 in Portugal. But they also own the Minipreço brand, and these neighborhood groceries are ubiquitous, with over 600 in the country.
- Minipreço used to belong to the Spanish DIA brand. Dia still exists, with nearly 500 stores in Portugal. Spanish brand Mercadona has only about 50 stores, but is 6th in market share. Both are built around a minimalist approach, with Dia eschewing store decorations and Mercadona (which started out as a butcher) minimizing packaging and advertising.
- Pingo Doce (“Sweet Spot”) is the native Portuguese brand which is generally considered to be the most ubiquitous, with its 500 stores.
- French brand Continente has about 400 stores, and its store-brand products are also carried in 300 neighborhood “Meu Super” stores.
- German discount brands Aldi and Lidl are commonly visible, with around 100 and 375 stores, respectively. In Portugal, “Aldi” refers to Aldi Nord, the owner of Trader Joe’s, not Aldi Sud, the owner of Winn-Dixie and of Aldi stores in the US and UK.
- And of course, there are numerous local “markets” of the type that in the US would be called farmers’ markets – places where local growers and producers sell their products.
Why We Don’t Mention Most Of These
That’s a lot of big chains – and yet, when people talk about grocery stores, most of them don’t get mentioned. Why not? The answer has to do with types or classifications of stores.
Auchan, for example, isn’t so much a grocery as a “departmental” store – more similar to early US “department” stores, in that they sell many types of products, in clearly segmented departments such as electronics, home appliances, groceries, and clothing.
Food stores are broken into types by size.
Local markets or grocery stores like Minipreço are smaller, and great places for your basic shopping but based on their size they may not have all of the common items you’re looking for. From an American standpoint, this is similar to, though often slightly larger than, the local “corner store”, with better food options. It’s definitely the place you stop to “pick something up on the way home from work.”
A “supermarket” is a full grocery, and includes some household items, arranged in categorized aisles. It’s more of a neighborhood store, and you may receive more personal service.
A hypermarket is more similar to a larger American grocery store, with a larger percentage of non-grocery items, that attempts to meet residents’ common shopping needs under one roof.
While all of these are great options for their intended audiences, the conversation around grocery stores, among expats, tends to focus on hypermarkets, which may most closely resemble their prior grocery experience. Lidl, Pingo Doce, and Continente tend to dominate that space and conversation.
Comparing our Hypermarkets
Lidl focuses on buying in bulk and providing goods at low prices. As a result, some items can be unpredictable – if they can’t get a good price, that item may disappear for a week or two and then come back (or not). They also have a small “international” aisle where they sell items that have been packaged for other markets. (We sometimes find Bisquick there…)
That fellow in the video was talking about things randomly being unavailable at his grocery – because he shopped at Lidl. He didn’t understand their core philosophy, so the disappearing/reappearing products were confusing to him.
Pingo Doce is a native Portuguese brand. Anyone who has looked closely at things like construction or how electrical lines are attached to the outsides of old buildings will recognize a certain Portuguese personality at Pingo: focus on practicality, not pretty. Overcrowded aisles, occasionally-surly staff, but everything you need and a reasonably efficient experience.
The French chain tends to be more warmly lit, and have a broader selection of products that might feel a bit more “luxury”, at least as groceries go. For example, more types of coffee, and more flavors of ice cream, and sometimes a few more “international” items (because otherwise I have to walk up to Auchan for maple syrup which, it turns out, is a really American thing).
Our first, “landing-pad” apartment in Portugal is a block from a Lidl and we’ve really been happy with our shopping experience there. Our “forever home” in Portugal is next door to a Continente and I admit I am looking forward to that larger, brighter bakery, in-store cafe, and…did I mention the ice cream?
We may occasionally continue to shop at that Lidl, or to go there for specific items if the prices are significantly different. But we’ll know to watch for that – because with an understanding of the “personality” or philosophy of the various players, we can better identify and keep an eye out for the differences that matter to us.
Maybe not – perhaps the differences for the products we commonly buy won’t be significant enough. But knowing the “why” of these chains will help us know what things to monitor, and when to go somewhere else.
