The weekly food shop in Luxembourg: supermarkets, markets and grocers

Food shopping is the first thing a new arrival does and the last thing anyone explains. Luxembourg has a small number of supermarket chains with quite different characters, a set of weekly markets that most residents never find, and a network of ethnic grocers that outperforms the supermarkets on quality and price for a large share of what a household actually eats. Working out the map takes a month by trial and error and about ten minutes if somebody tells you.

The supermarkets, and what each is for

• Cactus is the Luxembourgish chain, present from small city-centre formats to large out-of-town stores, with a strong fresh and local range. The larger branches have the best butchery and fish counters of the mainstream chains.
• Auchan operates the hypermarket format, principally at Kirchberg and Cloche d'Or, and is where you go for a large shop, a wide non-food range and imported products.
• Delhaize brings the Belgian range and is well distributed across the city in mid-sized stores.
• Match and Smatch occupy the neighbourhood convenience end.
• Aldi and Lidl cover the discount segment and are considerably better than their reputation for staples, dairy and household goods.
• Naturata is the organic chain, with a serious range and prices to match.
• Pall Center, out of town, mixes food, wine and general retail and is a destination rather than a weekly stop.

The practical pattern most households settle into is a large monthly shop at a hypermarket, a weekly top-up at whichever mid-sized store is nearest, and fresh food from a market or a specialist. Trying to do everything in one place is what makes food shopping in Luxembourg feel expensive.

The markets

• Place Guillaume II, in the Ville-Haute, holds the capital's main market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, with producers, cheese, charcuterie, flowers and prepared food. Saturday is the fuller of the two.
• Glacis, on Limpertsberg, hosts a large monthly market on a Sunday, which is as much an event as a shop.
• Neighbourhood markets run in Bonnevoie, the Gare district and several communes on fixed weekday mornings. Ask at your commune, because these are not well advertised and they are where the regulars go.
• Cross-border markets in Arlon, Thionville and Trier are larger and cheaper, and a considerable number of residents build a Saturday around one.

Markets here close at lunchtime. Arriving at half past one is arriving after the event.

The grocers, which is where the value is

Luxembourg's population is around half foreign, and the food retail reflects that. The independent grocers serving the Portuguese, Italian, Balkan, Cape Verdean, Turkish and South Asian communities are frequently better and cheaper than the supermarkets on exactly the things people buy most.

• Bonnevoie, around the Rue de Bonnevoie and the Rue du Cimetière, has the deepest concentration in the city. Portuguese and Italian grocers, butchers, fishmongers and bakeries at prices the Ville-Haute does not attempt.
• The Gare district carries a similar mix with a wider international range.
• Hollerich has a growing cluster.

If you cook, this is a genuine quality-of-life argument for living in Bonnevoie or the Gare, and it is one of the things that does not appear in any relocation brief.

What is hard to find, and where to look

Every nationality arriving in Luxembourg has a list of things they cannot find. The general answers:

• British and Irish products: the international aisles of the hypermarkets, and specialist online delivery.
• North American products: the same, plus the larger Auchan stores.
• Asian ingredients: specialist Asian supermarkets in the capital and the Gare district, which are far better stocked than the supermarket aisle.
• Halal and kosher: specialist butchers in the city, and the Gare and Bonnevoie districts.
• Serious cheese and charcuterie: the Place Guillaume market, specialist shops in the Ville-Haute, or a trip to France.
• Anything at three in the morning: nothing. Luxembourg closes.

The rhythms to learn

• Sunday is closed, with limited exceptions. This catches out every new arrival exactly once.
• Public holidays are closed, and there are more of them than in most countries.
• Saturday afternoon is busy everywhere, and Saturday morning at the market is busier.
• Late opening exists at some larger stores on certain evenings, and it varies. Check your local store rather than assuming.
• Petrol station shops and station convenience stores cover the gaps, at a price.

Waste, packaging and the deposit system

Food shopping here comes with a set of disposal obligations that surprise new arrivals, and getting them wrong is one of the more common sources of friction with neighbours.

• Separation is granular. Glass, paper, organic waste, plastic and metal packaging, and residual waste all go to different containers, and the arrangements are set by your commune rather than nationally.
• The Valorlux blue bag collects plastic bottles, metal packaging and drink cartons, and is distributed through communes and supermarkets.
• Glass goes to bottle banks rather than to a kerbside container in most communes, sorted by colour.
• Organic waste has its own container in most communes and it matters more than people think in summer.
• Deposits apply to some drinks packaging, and returning it is how you recover the money.
• The recycling centre, the parc de recyclage, takes everything else: electronics, bulky items, hazardous waste, garden waste. It is where a Saturday morning goes once a month.

Get your commune's collection calendar in the first week, and in an apartment building ask the syndic or the concierge which container is which. It takes ten minutes and it prevents the note on the door.

Three questions we are asked

Is food shopping in Luxembourg expensive?

Compared with Germany and France, generally yes, and the gap is widest on fresh produce and prepared foods and narrowest on alcohol and fuel. Households that use the markets and the independent grocers rather than only the supermarkets close most of it.

Is it worth shopping across the border?

For a large shop, many residents think so, particularly in Germany for groceries and in France for produce, wine and cheese. Against that, count the fuel, the time and the fact that Luxembourg is cheaper on alcohol and petrol. It works best combined with a day out rather than as a chore.

Which district is best for food shopping?

Bonnevoie, comfortably, followed by the Gare district. Both have supermarkets, independent grocers, butchers and bakeries within walking distance and at prices well below the plateau. The Ville-Haute has the market and very little else at sensible prices.

Why this matters when you are choosing where to live

Households who cook consistently rate Bonnevoie and the Gare above districts that cost thirty per cent more, and it is entirely because of the shopping. It is worth saying out loud when you tell an agent what you want.

A useful way to test what is hard to find, and where to look is to run a normal-day scenario. For the question raised by “What is hard to find, and where to look”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

For waste, packaging and the deposit system, note what you can see, what you can measure, what you need to ask and what would be expensive to change. For the question raised by “What is hard to find, and where to look”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

For the rhythms to learn, measurement is often more revealing than opinion. For the question raised by “The rhythms to learn”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

A useful editorial test for why this matters when you are choosing where to live is to look at the consequence rather than the headline feature.

A stronger reading of what is hard to find, and where to look starts by asking what would change for the resident on an ordinary weekday.