Grocery stores

Since you are a human, you will need food to survive. Sometimes even before getting a BSN number, you would want to visit a grocery store, but then you realize that your favorite brand doesn’t exist in the Netherlands. Where do you go? Luckily, you usually have a lot of options! Here are some, ranked by prices from high to low:

• Spar
  – Spar is present almost everywhere in Europe. In the Netherlands, Spar is considered to be one of, if not the most expensive grocery store. This could be attributed to the fact that Spar usually has stores in city centers.
• Albert Heijn
  – The most ubiquitous name (Abbreviated as “AH”, more commonly known as “appie”) you will find when it comes to grocery stores. It is the biggest dutch store chain, found almost everywhere. By default, it is indeed quite pricey, but to compensate for it, they have discounts. (Bonus) By downloading the Albert Heijn application on your phone and registering, you will be able to save a lot of money, and make appie have near, or the same prices as the stores listed below. Some products also only exist in specific stores, so pay attention to that.
• Jumbo
  – The second biggest chain in the Netherlands, right after AH. They offer a mixture of products (In terms of quality and price) that could potentially sometimes be found in AH or Lidl. The pricing is generally close to AH, but they also offer similar discounts. Think of it as a bit cheaper (and sometimes smaller) version of appie.
• Aldi
  – Generally the same pricing as Jumbo and quality of Lidl, but sometimes has items that could be found at Albert Heijn for a bit cheaper.
• Lidl
  – Generally touted as the cheapest grocery store in the Netherlands, it has a decent amount of products (Comparable to Jumbo / Aldi) at a low price, but because of this, doesn’t really have discounts, and when it does, they are miniscule. (Think €1.10 -> €1.05)
  The general rule of thumb is that when AH has heavy discounts, the price is usually the same as the base price of Lidl.

A very professional showcase of the price range would look something like this:

To summarize this, look at the current stores in your vicinity, download their applications, check for bonus deals regularly, and shop wherever the given product you are looking for is the cheapest.