Supermarkets Shopping

I love supermarkets. Whenever I have time to kill, I will find the nearest supermarket and get myself lost in them. Whenever I am overseas, I would want to know where is the nearest supermarket from wherever we are putting up. It does matter whether I am cooking or not since supermarkets these days sell more than just foodstuff. Some days I walk out of supermarkets with magazines, on others I can be spotted munching on baked goods from the deli.

Unfortunately, it is hard to find someone who are as supermarket crazy. My mom and Hubby excluded, since they are being dragged there by me. To most, supermarkets exist for a specific purpose, much like toilets, and that purpose is definitely not even remotely associated with recreation.

Recently, I started noticing full-page coloured advertisement up by our local supermarkets. Although is is nice to know what items are on promotion, the selection of items which appears on the ad makes me wonder who are the supermarkets trying to reach out to.

As I start to take note of the items, it seems to me that there is some sort of checklist of the types of items to be advertised for whoever is the target audience.



Here's what the table tells me. Most people don't cook or don't know how to cook at home hence turing to processed foods rather than fresh produce. Eating at home seems to be limited to fruits only. For those people who cook, they definitely cook with rice and oil. And when they are home, they are cleaning zealots and busy feeding milk to kids. For relaxation, they will drink something alcoholic and munch on snacks.

This is a vast contrast from what I saw at a neighbourhood supermarket in Tokyo. They offer mostly fresh food despite being a country that offers tons and tons of snacks. From what I see, I could only hazard a guess that Japanese families cook more than our families here. Good for them, and woe to us.

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