To illustrate this, I will tell you what I put in my cart to do my shopping. We are changing scale here in the United States. You will imagine a pizza in the deli section of your supermarket. In general it is 400, 500 sometimes 600g. Well here, pizza commonly exceeds a kilo. Then we’re going to go to the ice cream section for a Häagen-Dazs. It is sold here in a 2 liter jar. You heard correctly.
It’s four times bigger than the pot of the same brand in a supermarket in France. To complete our very balanced meal, I also had fruit juice sold by the gallon. The gallon is a unit of measurement used here, rounding up, that’s almost 4 liters again. And I could multiply the examples because it is so striking. The bottle of ketchup is also 1.8kg.
Consumption is a reflection of society
How can we explain such a significant difference? It is a new illustration that consumption is the perfect reflection of society. I wouldn’t go so far as to tell you that hypermarkets are the best way to know and understand a country. But I’m not far from it anyway. There are two main explanations. First, we will dispel the idea that Americans eat more than us. Above all, they are more relaxed about certain products. Often the fattest and sweetest are pizzas, ice creams, sodas, fruit juices.
Then, there is a second explanation which is linked to housing. Americans simply have more room to live than the French. There are many more single-family homes here. Around 75% of housing is houses compared to 50 to 55% in France. Logically, there are more places to store food products. On average, a French person has 40 square meters of housing per person while an American has 90 square meters. More than double. This allows him to have a larger fridge and a larger freezer. There is a link between the size of products in supermarkets and that of homes.
Read more
