Here in the states delis are popular sections of supermarkets, and even their own restaurants in certain parts of the States.
Delis, for those unfamiliar, are where you go to get cold cut meats and cheeses commonly used for sandwiches
This piqued my interest because when my wife and I went to Ireland/NI this year and we decided to go grocery shopping (to save on dining out) and the grocery stores we stopped at never had a deli, we’d have to buy or packaged cold cuts
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Yes, very much a thing here. Small supermarkets won’t have them and only sell packaged stuff, but any normal supermarket has one.
In Portugal yes, usually known as charcutaria. There’s also often a butcher, a fishmonger and a bakery counter, although some bakery sections have become self-service in the past few years.
In the Netherlands, no. There’s no individual parlours where you interact with people to get food as far as I’ve noticed.
Edit: I mean in supermarkets. Didn’t realise the post was asking in general.
Most supermarkets here have deli counters at the back where they’ll slice cold meats for you and sell some more specialty cheeses. I’d say it’s fairly unusual that the ones you stopped at didn’t have a deli counter.
Yep at least in semi big supermarkets we have them, if it’s big enough they also have a butchery, cheese deli (fromagerie) and cold meat deli (charcuterie), all separated.
Yes they have salted sandwich meats that a customer can buy by weight. There are also small shops that sell only meat products, but they are not as common as supermarkets.
They’ve mostly disappeared from British supermarkets over the last few years. I found this in a news article from March of last year:
>Leading supermarket Tesco has just announced the closure of all 317 of its in-store deli counters. This follows Sainsbury’s similar announcement at the end of 2020 that it would permanently close all 420 in-store counters including meat, fish and delicatessen.
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>Nick Gladding, senior UK retail analyst at IGD, explained that these closures were a result of an “accelerated decline in customer use of in-store counters” due to the pandemic.
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>He added, “Improvements to the quality and merchandising of pre-packed deli lines means that fewer shoppers see the need to use a counter. At the same time, the expense of running counters, combined with the need to reduce costs to be more competitive, is prompting more large retailers to close them.”
Another article I found said that only 6% of shoppers were using supermarket food counters.
Cold cuts and cheese are found in the meat section and the cheese section, or at the butcher’s shop and the cheese shop. There’s not a special Delicatessen section, rather, it’s just food.
But! High-brow stores like Globus (like Marks & Spencer in Britain) do have sections for such things where you can sit down and eat, even. Globus serves sushi as well. Bigger stores of mid-brow chains also have a section for cold cuts and cheese that are made to look a bit fancier, but it’s just the meat and cheese section. Also, veggies in oil and other things you use for antipasti.
And then there are shops specialised in food of one or another country. The Italian shop down the street has a high-end sortiment of Italian cheeses and meats, but also pasta, bread, oils, wine, vinegar and such.
Yes pretty much every grocery store has a deli-style counter. You can still buy packaged cold cuts, but it’s often cheaper if the counter person slices them off a large chunk for you.
There’s also a counter that has hot cooked foods like pastries or roast chicken, and cold stuff like prepared salads.
Depends on the supermarket. The older, larger and/or more upmarket the place is, the more likely it is to have one. Here’s the list of nearby supermarkets and whether they have a deli or not:
– Miratorg (upmarket, small): only has a café counter with pastries, pizza and coffee
– Vkusvill (upmarket, small): only has a fish counter and a café counter
– Perekrôstok (midmarket, large): has a deli counter, a butcher’s counter and a fish counter
– Azbuka Vkusa (upmarket, mid): has a deli counter, a fish counter and a bakery
– AV mini (upmarket, small): has a café counter
– Magnolija (downmarket, small): no counters
– Magnit (downmarket, mid): no counters
– Dixi (downmarket, mid): no counters
– grocery store that is literally older than me or my parents: *everything* is a separate counter there
Some of the larger supermarktes have those, although most supermarkets have packaged cold cuts. I prefer to go to a small shops like a butcher and a cheese shop. Those often have more choices and better quality. Plus the owner is often in the shop giving better advise. It’s a bit more expensive but I think it’s worth it. Sometimes I go to a farmer directly to buy cheese.
Yes. Very common in slightly bigger stores unless they are a discount chain like Lidl or Penny. Unfortunately the ones we have here in Prague all have pre-cut cold cuts and cheese, unless it’s a smaller butcher shop with deli counter, though even those often have the cold cuts pre-cut in batches. I understand it’s quicker to serve the customers this way, but I personally I hate certain types of salamis from those pre-cut batches because they dry out and have a bad taste.
I’ve heard from co-workers in the countryside their local stores, if they have a deli counter at all, will cut the cold cuts only when you buy them, so it’s “fresher”. Which is what I’m used to from Austria and Hungary.
Not too common, but they always exist in any decently sized city, I’d say. And medium sized or bigger supermarkets will also often have very good delis
Yes, pretty much every big and mid size supermarket has a “gastronomia” (Italian version of a deli) in the back where they sell cold cuts and cheeses with some also selling ready meals. Small supermarkets might also have them depending on the location
Supermarkets do, discounters don’t. But in Germany, the places to go for a lot of what you would call deli food are butchers and bakers. You can get stand-up and sit-down meals in many of them, bakeries always offer filled rolls and sandwiches, and butchers usually have a cold meats section and offer hot meals. In fact, both kinds of shops often have a selection of warm meals at lunch time.
“Deli”, short for *Delicatessen* which is a German loan word. However in Germany this is in itself a loan word from the French *Délicatesse*.
Of course we have fucking “delis”
Larger groceries have that, but often it’s not part of the grocery itself but a local butcher which has a shop in the same building.
Yes, we have them in each middle size to big size supermarkets. They are usually combined with meats (only white and red, not sea food because it has its own deli separate), cheese, olives, cold mezes. You can also buy prepackaged stuff and made them cut it for you. Also, meats, milk, cheese and olives has high chance of having their separate small shops in your neighbourhood.
Yes sure, the bigger ones have them: bread, cheese, meat, fish, sushi, …
It’s unglamorously called the sausage counter, and every normal supermarket has them. Until a few years ago it was the standard way of buying sausage, ham etc. Prepackaged stuff came later. I prefer the counter, there’s less plastic packaging.
One Austrian speciality is that they can make bread roll sandwiches for you (Wurstsemmel) which is a staple lunch for all walks of life. Many an Austrian has been confused when they can’t get that in Germany.
Places for hot meals sometimes exist in very large supermarkets, outside the shopping area.
Most supermarkets here have deli / butcher and cheese sections where you can get exactly that and more.
Yeah incredibly widespread here, almost every medium sized shop, garage/service station, or supermarket will have one. Very very common for people to get a hot chicken roll or a sandwich in one on their lunch breaks, buy fresh sliced meats and cheeses, or buy hot snacky foods
Hungary – smaller grocery stores don’t have it, neither do certain supermarket chains (Aldi & Lidl come to mind). But they’re fairly widespread otherwise, you can find them in decently sized Spars, Tescos, etc.
Yes, even smaller markets you find in neighbourhoods have them. Selection is smaller though.
Somewhat – imo it is a bit different.
Almost all stores have a “baked goods counter” – but these are usually self-service and serve a selection of goods baked in the store (but I think they mostly use pre-made (and sometimes frozen) buns etc).
In most stores, there is the “ready-made foods counter” – you interact with a person to buy some salads or warm food (like cooked potatoes, grilled chicken).
Often, it extends into “meat and fish counter” – you interact with a person to buy some raw meat or fish, including not only cuts and whole fish, but also stuff like minced meat or de-boned Baltic herring.
And there might also be a cheese and cold cuts counter – I would say that these might be the least prevalent of the mentioned options. They usually include pre-packaged stuff as well (including pieces that have been cut and packaged in the store).