eracode:

Geektastic: Walking round supermarkets here in Portugal and seeing how much higher our prices are, how much more choice there is and worse, how some things I was told by NZ supermarkets were unavailable due to global shortages are not only plentiful but cheap.

One particular brand of French Camembert I like has been very difficult to get for 18 months and last time I saw it for sale it had gone up to $21.

I saw it this morning for the equivalent of $4!!

I realise Portugal is closer to France etc but seriously that’s a ridiculous difference.

Earlier this year we were on home exchanges and spent a month in Spain and two months in England. We were supermarket shopping and cooking at 'home' in both places. In both countries all food prices were very cheap compared to NZ. Our first shop when we arrived in Hove, England, which would have been about $200 here, was ~£70 ($140 at the time). We thought the supermarket had made a mistake and went through the receipt later to check it.

Cheese was one thing we noticed as being particularly cheap. A whole circle of Castello White which sells here for $23 (New World) was about $9 at Tesco in Hove. Other beautiful cheeses were at similar price ratios. As you say, the tyranny of distance can't fully account for this.

Just before Covid we were in Portugal for two months. Local supermarket sold lovely soft Euro red wines for $4-$5 but that's more understandable.