What’s a supermarket product from another European country you fell in love with and wish would be widely available in your country?

45 comments

1. Mezzo Mix from Germany.

2. Cedrata and chinotto. It’s obscenely hard to find those two beverages here in Spain, or at least in my city.

3. Sahneyoghurt, cream yoghurt, from Germany. I love it but here it’s only available in a very limited number of flavours. Whereas in Germany and Austria you have tons. Any time I’m there I make sure to bring some back home.

4. Finnish Siideri, essentially cider but in a ton of flavors. We don’t really have anything that compares.

5. Red Leicester cheese. Discovered it in the UK and cannot get it abroad in supermarkets.

6. The Swedes have everything in tubes. Bacon/cheese, just squeeze

7. Spent some time in Austria and grew to like Salzburger sausages.

   Honourable mention for 3 euro cigarettes from the Canaries.

8. 🇪🇦 Cathedral Cheddar cheese (the vegan version) they have in Britain. And so many products you could easily get in any British supermarket but not here.

9. Oatcakes and Red Leicester cheese, I used to eat them everyday when I was in the UK!

10. I might have my Spanish citizenship revoked for this, but I tried some bomb mint gazpacho in France.

11. Spanish colonia. It was dirt cheap in Spain and sold even in one liter plastic bottles. So it’s basically perfumed alcohol and super practical in hot weather, not for drinking 😉 but wiping your armpits with it. Kills bad odour causing bacteria immediately.
    I don’t know if Spanish ppl have other uses to it.
    Also, they have excellent cleaning alcohol very cheaply in regular grocery stores.

    We have some similarish products but in small bottles. Finnish ppl can not be trusted with alcohol ☹️
    On the other hand, heatwaves are less common too 🙂

12. The French soda Orangina isn’t available in Denmark for some reason, which is a shame since it’s basically Fanta but way better.

    At least we have Faxe Kondi, which has the same relationship to Sprite.

13. I have a few.

    From the UK: red Leicester cheese, ready-made piri chicken strips, and microwave pilau rice

    From Belgium: cheap and *actually good* Liège style (luikse) waffles

    From Poland: Tortex spicy ketchup

    From Germany: Apfelschorle

    When I lived abroad: strong liquorice of any kind. Almost impossible to find abroad

14. Confit gesiers de canard.

15. Cockta, a cola made in slovenia and sold in almost every ex-yugoslav country

    Plazma, a cookie brand from the same region, they seem to be very popular there, they even had their own McFlurry flavour in McDonalds

16. Irish/ British sausages. The Cumberland ones or even any knockoffs. I NEED these sausages on the mainland!

17. I love Almdudler (Austrian soda). There’s only one place that I know of that sells it in Paris (a German grocery shop). Of course, the price was many times the price in Austria.

    I also love manteca colorá, but I loved my friend’s mom’s manteca colorá so much, even the ones I could buy in Spain paled in comparison.

18. Swedish mjukost, I usually ate Kavli. It’s a cheese spread in a tube and it can have different flavours.

19. Portugal and Spain: they sell rabbits, almost like chicken!

20. Kaufland brand spicy cornichons. I can’t live without them, but I also can’t get them. Life is hell.

21. UK: Yorkshire Gold (tea). Can’t for the life of me find it in Denmark, or in German shops. The German Amazon has it, but it costs twice as much plus shipping, since we can’t benefit from Amazon prime here in DK either. Also Hobgoblin beer.

    Poland: Polish ham. It’s just so, so, so much better.

    Edit: I know that I can order things online.

22. Apfelschorle from Germany is something I would love to have here in the Netherlands!

23. Appel-kers from Belgium, it is a juice and it is simply amazing! It is apple with cherry

24. From England, but I live in Switzerland now. Walkers salt and vinegar crisps. I’m not saying Swiss crisps aren’t good, but without salt and vinegar the range of flavours is just not complete.

25. For whatever reason I fell in love with the tesco meal deal sandwiches when I was there, I wish we had them here.

26. M&S’s pains au chocolat and their cheddar scones.
    I miss the UK, and I miss those products :/

27. I cant remember the actual name of it, but in Denmark there is a type of black tea with strawberry blended in, and other fruit/berry flavors available as well. Delicious, and **caffeinated**, unlike any of the fruit teas I can find in Iberia. Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

28. Lay’s Moutarde Pickles flavoured crisps from France. Delicious.

29. UK Monster Munch.

    It’s so over the top on flavour. I love it dearly.

30. Yogurt with smarties. One of my favourite parts of breakfast in Portugal

31. Le petit marseillais shower gels. It’s sad to need to go across the border to hoard those wonderful scented gels.

    Whole mortadella sausages that are sliced according to customers needs, like you slice ham. I saw them in Italian supermarkets. They’re huge. I was awed.

    On that same page, mutti brand has lots more options in Italy than outside. I’m very envious andcwant them all here.

    Foie gras (the good ones) and confit de canard in cans.

    The wide variety of cookies&biscuits in British supermarkets

32. I used to live in Luxembourg, where international food is easier to find:
    – Belgium: Côte d’Or Fondant Chocolate because I need it for my chocolate mousse! It’s not the same with any other brand
    – France: madeleines Bonne Maman and small savoury biscuits by Michel & Augustin
    – US: Reese’s peanut butter cups
    – Luxembourg: Luxlait chocolate milk & La Provençale cheese wursts

33. – Stracciatella cheese from Italy
    – Mezzo mix and pretzel breads from Germany
    – Figolu and Bonne Maman biscuits from France
    – Kougnaman pie from Brittany
    – Hamkaas chips and crystallized old Gouda from Netherlands

34. AquArius Limon drink from Spain. I lived on that stuff over there. Wish we could get it in Ireland.

35. Lu buscuits. We can get pretty much all the same types of biscuits here but they just don’t taste as good as the Lu brand ones to me.

36. Dutch dairy. Specifically *Vla*. Every time I land in the Netherlands, first thing I do, literally, is rent a bike and go to the supermarket to buy a carton.

    It’s the more sad knowing our region has a well developed dairy industry otherwise.

37. 🇫🇷 Delicious macarons that don’t cost £4573 each and/or taste of cardboard and basic French baguette as they taste better than any I’ve found here in the UK
    🇧🇪 Andalouse sauce (I love condiments)

38. Oregano crisps from Greece, I’ve had them years ago already but haven’t been able to find them at all. I also miss many Indonesian products in Belgium, all I can find here is kecap manis and sambal. I went to several different stores looking for galangal but none had it, acar is also hard to find.

39. I’m not sure they exist anymore, but the UK had these [Walkers Salt and Shake.](https://www.walkers.co.uk/our-range/walkers-crisps/salt-and-shake) LOVED these.

    Also UK: Full English breakfast, chocolate with crispy orange or mint in it, J2O, Fentimans Dandelion & Burdock.

40. When I was in Ireland, I used to get these baby corns, but they are hard to find in the Czech Republic.

41. Kefir from Eastern Europe. Not widely available here

42. Lotus Biscoof Spread. Speculoo cream from Belgium.

    (Spiced Christmas biscuit, turned into some unbelievable, fantastic bread spread. Looks like peanut butter. You can use it like peanut-butter.)

    I found it at two big supermarket chains, REWE and Kaufland (with no Kaufland near me).

43. There are at least two British supermarkets near where I live, so I don’t miss much from the UK, except for the cinnamon and raisin bagels I used to get when I was studying there 😭

    I also miss paprika flavoured crisps. For a while they were available over here, but I can’t seem to find them as easily anymore. Same with Boca Bits, I have to go to Spain for them now.

44. I have always lived quite close to the Swedish boarder but now I am studying near the Russian boarder. My family has always made bigger shopping trip like every 1-3 months to Tornio and Haparanda and it would always conclude with a grocery shop at ICA. There are a lot of basic things I miss ( the holiday specialty stuff is it’s own chapter), but what I absolutely love and can’t get from a grocery store here are the Anthon Berg marzipan bars. Also it isn’t a Christmas if I don’t get the Anthon Berg gold box. I have told everyone that I just want that and everything else is extra. Last year they did have them at Rusta here and I was so happy.

45. Rivella from Switzerland

    However, now that I live in Switzerland, I miss some products available in Cyprus that I wish were available here too:

    Pokka and Mr.Brown coffees, Pretty much every Kean product (fruit juices) and Hell Energy (Hungarian product, but also widely available in CY).

    Also, I can’t find Old Holborn White tobacco anywhere outside of Cyprus, only the yellow one, even though it’s a Swiss product.