When it comes to grocery store chains in your country, which is the cheap low-tier chain, and which is the high-end chain?
August 11, 2025
To be clear, I don't mean any unique one of a kind food stores. I'm talking nationwide chains, and wonder about the low-tier one and the top-tier one.
26 comments
Top tier: Waitrose and Booth’s, though the latter is regional.
Low tier: Farmfoods. Some would argue Lidl and Aldi as well.
Lidl is low tier, there isnt high tier but just local chains.
I’d say Edeka ist top, while “Ghetto-Netto” is the bottom of the garbage bin.
Low Tier: Norma, Netto with the dog logo (we have two Nettos, but one isn’t nation wide afaik)
High end: The grocery stores in department stores
Top Tier: Albert Heijn (esp. XL locations), Jumbo, Plus.
Low Tier: Aldi, Lidl, Nettorama
Low-tier: Coop Extra, Kiwi or Rema 1000
High-end: Meny, Coop Mega
The low-tier ones aren’t cheap and the high-end ones aren’t high-end. Norwegians love complaining about that almost as much as they love protecting them from foreign competition.
Low tier: Aldi, Lidl
High end: Delhaize (the original Food lion)
Top tier: Gourmet Spar, Billa Corso (premium stores of Spar and Billa (Rewe), the largest supermarket chains in Austria), maybe Denn’s (organic, but they have only like 35 stores across the country)
Low tier: Penny (Rewe), Lidl, Hofer (Aldi) – even though it is a notch above the other two
There is a tier of ethnic supermarkets as well, mostly Turkish, some privately owned, some part of chains. They are mainly competing with the low tier supermarkets.
And that’s basically it. Spar, Rewe and Hofer dominate the market in Austria, resulting in some of the highest prices for grocery in Europe due to the lack of competition.
On personal opinion, it’d be something like Profi-City for low end and Kaufland for higher end.
Waitrose/M&S for high
Morrisons/Co-op/Iceland for low. Co-op is very overpriced but it’s the worst supermarket.
Low tier: Aldi and Lidl
High tier: Albert Heijn and Delhaize
Top tier: Dunnes Stores, Supervalu
Low tier: Lidl, Aldi
In saying that, the cheaper places are not really that much cheaper anymore
Maybe a french Redditor will be along to correct me, but as a Brit over here I’d say:
Top Tier: Grand Frais
Bottom Tier: Netto or Spar (or maybe the smaller local Proxi chain)
Spain
Low tier: Aldi, Lidl, Dia
Medium tier: Gadis, Mercadona, Eroski, Carrefour, Coviran, Dino.
High tier: Hipercor, Sánchez Romero
For us, the low-tier chains are the expensive ones (Coop, CBA, Reál) and the high-end ones are the cheaper ones (Spar, Lidl, Aldi, Penny).
But hey, we have to shop at the super expensive, low-quality local oligarch-owned chains, instead of the evil foreign multinationals with higher quality and lower prices. It’s national pride or whatever.
UK:
Top Tier: Waitrose (most seem to be in twee market towns….)
Top Tier of the Big 4: Sainsbury’s
Mid: Tesco, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl. (for all the mockery of Lidl and Aldi, they always seem to put their new stores in middle class neighbourhoods not council estates….)
Bottom Tier of the Big 4: Asda
Low Tier: Iceland, Farmfoods, doing your weekly shop at Home Bargains/B&M
Not really a proper supermarket: Co-Op.
Finland has the duopoly between the S Group and the K Group. They’re quite similar to each other. S Group stores are maybe a bit more boring, but the differences aren’t big. Lidl is low tier, but as a hard discounter, that is by design – they don’t even try to compete with the same breadth of selection as the duopoly. These three cover 91% of Finnish grocery trade.
Tokmanni (<2%) sells fresh foods in some 20 of their stores, but most of their stores are dry goods discount stores only. I haven’t checked them personally, but it’s also another hard discounter. The only other *chains* are Minimani and M-Market at less than 1% market share.
If we’re talking prices, there are no lower or higher tiers, they’re all pretty similar.
Lidl is least “polished” and has a lot less choice, Kaufland has maybe the most choice and polish.
In Italy we have so many chains, and prices vary based on the region. Some examples of low-tier ones for northern Italy (which are considered discounts) are Lidl, Eurospin and more recently Aldi. Mid-tier are Conad and Coop. Higher-tier, mainly for the prices, Esselunga, Carrefour, or NaturaSì for organic products. Then we have quite luxurious ones like Eataly, but only in major cities.
We have many chains which operate only in some parts of the country, so very hard to make a comprehensive list!
Germany: low tier is Lidl, Penny, Netto, Aldi, Kaufland….high tier: Alnatura and other Biosupermarkets.
Cheap high tier: Lidl, Aldi
More expensive high tier: Rewe, Edeka
Cheap low mid tier: penny
More expensive mid tier: kaufland
Cheap low tier: Netto, norma
WTF! tier: the Penny Reeperbahn in Hamburg
(yes that one specific Branch of Penny deserves it own tear and Yes it is justified to call that tear wtf! )
And all tears are based on my experience
Lidl is considered cheap in Finland.
There are then K-markets which are considered quite expensive despite selling basic quality.
K-supermarkets are cheaper and sell same stuff.
But I don’t think there are any “premium chains” in Finland.
Everything is owned my K chain or S chain. Lidl is only true competitor there.
26 comments
Top tier: Waitrose and Booth’s, though the latter is regional.
Low tier: Farmfoods. Some would argue Lidl and Aldi as well.
Lidl is low tier, there isnt high tier but just local chains.
I’d say Edeka ist top, while “Ghetto-Netto” is the bottom of the garbage bin.
Low Tier: Norma, Netto with the dog logo (we have two Nettos, but one isn’t nation wide afaik)
High end: The grocery stores in department stores
Top Tier: Albert Heijn (esp. XL locations), Jumbo, Plus.
Low Tier: Aldi, Lidl, Nettorama
Low-tier: Coop Extra, Kiwi or Rema 1000
High-end: Meny, Coop Mega
The low-tier ones aren’t cheap and the high-end ones aren’t high-end. Norwegians love complaining about that almost as much as they love protecting them from foreign competition.
Low tier: Aldi, Lidl
High end: Delhaize (the original Food lion)
Top tier: Gourmet Spar, Billa Corso (premium stores of Spar and Billa (Rewe), the largest supermarket chains in Austria), maybe Denn’s (organic, but they have only like 35 stores across the country)
Low tier: Penny (Rewe), Lidl, Hofer (Aldi) – even though it is a notch above the other two
There is a tier of ethnic supermarkets as well, mostly Turkish, some privately owned, some part of chains. They are mainly competing with the low tier supermarkets.
And that’s basically it. Spar, Rewe and Hofer dominate the market in Austria, resulting in some of the highest prices for grocery in Europe due to the lack of competition.
On personal opinion, it’d be something like Profi-City for low end and Kaufland for higher end.
Waitrose/M&S for high
Morrisons/Co-op/Iceland for low. Co-op is very overpriced but it’s the worst supermarket.
Low tier: Aldi and Lidl
High tier: Albert Heijn and Delhaize
Top tier: Dunnes Stores, Supervalu
Low tier: Lidl, Aldi
In saying that, the cheaper places are not really that much cheaper anymore
Maybe a french Redditor will be along to correct me, but as a Brit over here I’d say:
Top Tier: Grand Frais
Bottom Tier: Netto or Spar (or maybe the smaller local Proxi chain)
Spain
Low tier: Aldi, Lidl, Dia
Medium tier: Gadis, Mercadona, Eroski, Carrefour, Coviran, Dino.
High tier: Hipercor, Sánchez Romero
For us, the low-tier chains are the expensive ones (Coop, CBA, Reál) and the high-end ones are the cheaper ones (Spar, Lidl, Aldi, Penny).
But hey, we have to shop at the super expensive, low-quality local oligarch-owned chains, instead of the evil foreign multinationals with higher quality and lower prices. It’s national pride or whatever.
UK:
Top Tier: Waitrose (most seem to be in twee market towns….)
Top Tier of the Big 4: Sainsbury’s
Mid: Tesco, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl. (for all the mockery of Lidl and Aldi, they always seem to put their new stores in middle class neighbourhoods not council estates….)
Bottom Tier of the Big 4: Asda
Low Tier: Iceland, Farmfoods, doing your weekly shop at Home Bargains/B&M
Not really a proper supermarket: Co-Op.
Finland has the duopoly between the S Group and the K Group. They’re quite similar to each other. S Group stores are maybe a bit more boring, but the differences aren’t big. Lidl is low tier, but as a hard discounter, that is by design – they don’t even try to compete with the same breadth of selection as the duopoly. These three cover 91% of Finnish grocery trade.
Tokmanni (<2%) sells fresh foods in some 20 of their stores, but most of their stores are dry goods discount stores only. I haven’t checked them personally, but it’s also another hard discounter. The only other *chains* are Minimani and M-Market at less than 1% market share.
If we’re talking prices, there are no lower or higher tiers, they’re all pretty similar.
Lidl is least “polished” and has a lot less choice, Kaufland has maybe the most choice and polish.
In Italy we have so many chains, and prices vary based on the region. Some examples of low-tier ones for northern Italy (which are considered discounts) are Lidl, Eurospin and more recently Aldi. Mid-tier are Conad and Coop. Higher-tier, mainly for the prices, Esselunga, Carrefour, or NaturaSì for organic products. Then we have quite luxurious ones like Eataly, but only in major cities.
We have many chains which operate only in some parts of the country, so very hard to make a comprehensive list!
Germany: low tier is Lidl, Penny, Netto, Aldi, Kaufland….high tier: Alnatura and other Biosupermarkets.
Cheap high tier: Lidl, Aldi
More expensive high tier: Rewe, Edeka
Cheap low mid tier: penny
More expensive mid tier: kaufland
Cheap low tier: Netto, norma
WTF! tier: the Penny Reeperbahn in Hamburg
(yes that one specific Branch of Penny deserves it own tear and Yes it is justified to call that tear wtf! )
And all tears are based on my experience
Lidl is considered cheap in Finland.
There are then K-markets which are considered quite expensive despite selling basic quality.
K-supermarkets are cheaper and sell same stuff.
But I don’t think there are any “premium chains” in Finland.
Everything is owned my K chain or S chain. Lidl is only true competitor there.
For Poland I’d say:
Low end: Aldi, Lidl, Biedronka,
Upper: Kaufland, Carrefour, Selgros
Supermercado, El corte Inglese” is on the other side of the scale in spain, from lidl,aldis, dia etc.
Elite: Globus
High/Regular: Manor / Coop / Migros
Low: Denner / Aldi / Lidl
Russia.
Lowest: Chizhik
Low: Magnit, Pyatyorochka
Middle: Perekryostok, Auchan
Upper middle: Vkusvill
High end: Globus Gourmet, Azbuka Vkusa