It's just a general impression that the supermarkets made on us so far
Although we prioritize local grocery shops and local communities, there are still many things we must get at the supermarkets.
Generally speaking, we thought we would be shopping at Costco more often, because buying in bulk would lower the unit costs. Instead, since we're not driving, it's less convenient to go to Costco, many miles away (about 35 mins drive or 50 mins of public transport). Ideally, MrHKer can pass his driving test (despite the abusive driving instructor's negativity and not helping a lot) and drive there.
As it is, we are ranking the supermarkets based on value-for-money, culture-friendly and accessibility. The main contenders are (so far):
- Sobey's (Safeway)
- Coop
- Loblaw's (Canadian Superstore/PC Express)
- TNT
- Walmart
Value-for-money
Overall, it's Loblaw's that wins it, because most of its own branded products are very good in quality and other brands are still without huge markups. Sobey's closely follows and followed by Walmart. TNT is great, but it's better when they have specific sales, and when they do have the sales on the items you want to purchase, they edge Walmart out. Sadly, we found that Coop had a higher markup, but their products were still robust.
Convenience
Amongst all these supermarkets, we rank Sobey's and Loblaw's top, because they cover different kinds of food from overseas and have a very extensive range from Asian to African style of products. TNT is the best for Chinese products though and you'd get many things you used to get in HK. Walmart and Coop do not have a lot of variety yet and most of their things have a European/American feel.
Accessibility
Here, there are many Sobey's, Coop and Loblaw's shops around. They have a very good coverage in urban zones. TNT and Walmart are mostly outside the city and you would need to travel further. In terms of internet shopping, the service from Loblaw's is, in my opinion, the best because they use their own staff to deliver. Walmart's service is ok too, but I found they used Instacart to ship and sometimes we received broken eggs or onions missing from the bag. In fact, Coop and TNT provide better service as they also use their own staff to bring your groceries. In contrast, Sobey's will not do home deliveries outside Ontario.
Summary
All in all, we rated the highest on top, based on our shopping habits:
- Loblaw's
- Sobey's
- TNT
- Walmart
- Coop
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