Switzerland supermarket, Switzerland shopping, what to eat in Switzerland. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022

In this page, I will share what we shopped, ate and noticed in groceries store in Switzerland.

It is good to know that in Switzerland, all supermarkets do not give away plastic bags. For every purchase, we used our own bags to pack our purchases.

For some eateries for eg Mcdonalds and ZFC, they provide paper bags for our food.

Before I start, like to share that Evian water in Switzerland is really cheap. CHF1.05 per 1.5l bottle at Coop. Though people recommend drinking free water from their fountain, we dare not try. So Evain became our main source of drinking water. For smaller bottle at CHF1, the bottle has a special drinking cap. We wanted to bring 2 empty bottles back as water bottle, but the hotel staff threw them away while doing room cleaning on our last day. So sad.

1. Availability of cooked food in general.

Yes, there were plenty of restaurants around us during our trip. About 80% of restaurant we visited have their menu printed in German. So we need to use our google translate to translate them into English.

Burgers and chicken from Mcdonald's at Zermatt. Salad from Denner Supermarket.

Select English, order from McDonald's kiosk.
Cheapest food we found here for our 1st dinner at Zermatt.
The burgers were bigger and tasted so much better compared to those in SG.
If we can survied just on McDonald's food alone for the whole trip, food would not be an issue for us as McDonald's was located near most of the places we visited. The problem was, we are no big fans of bread and fast food, so.....

2nd dinner at Zermatt
Lucky me, we stayed in a hotel with simple cooking facilites in Zermatt. I was able to cook some porridge for myself due to my weak stomach (altitude sickness from visiting Klein Matterhorn). My hubby prefer hot soupy food, so ended up eating porridge as well. My children ended up with cooked cold food from Denner Supermarket as they do not want porridge. By day 2, we were all very tired of bread and salads after having bread for all our meals the day before.

If I can turn back the clock, I would book all accomodation with cooking facilities, bring along canned braised pork or chye sim for my porridge. Asian canned food cannot be found here for me to go with porridge in Zermatt, so we ended up getting sausages, cured meat and swiss bottled pickled vegetables. It was not easy to look for chinese hot soupy food in Switzerland.

At Denner, cost of 1kg of marinated mid wings cost only CHF5.60. Their ready cut fresh meat were priced about the same. Only thing is, we cannot find any asian condiments there. So if we want to cook there, we need to bring along our instant paste or pack some chinese spices for some simple cooking there.
Another alternative? Bring along cup/bowl instant noodles with disposable chopsticks, plates and spoon cause these will add up the Swiss Franc spendings. We have Kimchi bowl instant noodles brought from home while we were in Ringgenberg and tasted best, hot soupy food during cool dinner time. We bought one kimchi bowl noodle from Coop Supermarket at CHF3.20, the same brand I bought from NTUC SG at SG$1.60.
On the other hand if you love cheese, bread, salad and cold food, you will enjoy all take out meals from supermarkets here. Again, if you are concerned with costing, the take out poke we bought from Coop Supermarket cost around CHF16. So to say take out food is not that cheap too.

Food from Japanese eatery at Zurich HB, Maru.
https://g.page/maru-japanese-food-culture?share
Cost around CHF20 per bowl, this was our happiest dinner after a week in Switzerland.
At least we were able to dine in a causal dinning setting with hot food at a reasonable price by Swiss standard. The tables has USB port for phone charging as well. So nice of them.

I found a few asian take away eateries located near Bern train station with price around CHF10 per portion via google map, but I was not able to locate them because we do not have time to walk the whole place when we were there. So not able to confirm them.

Suan Long chinese restaurant at Zurich.
https://goo.gl/maps/pqqsGuA17yeGmRmP8
CHF120 for our last dinner at Switzerland.
This is the kind of price we need to pay for restaurant food in Switzerland.
Imagine CHF3 for a plate of plain rice, CHF8 for 3 tiny siew mai? Noodles and duck cost around CHF26, the sweet and sour pork was the cheapest at CHF18.50+CHF3 for rice.
Western or other cusines cost about the same too. After days of bread and salad, we were craving for proper meal, chinese food then.
Honestly if we were in Zurich or Bern, we do not have any problem with food as there are plenty of choices as long as we are willing to pay.

For us, we dined at restaurant for lunch since we were at tourist attractions with not much choices. Usually western, with salads etc. Cost around CHF30 per portion. Servings were usually big and tasted good. We ordered 3 meals for 4 persons. It is a normal practice for restaurant crews to set up cutleries for 3 person. One restaurant in Iseltwald told us that they charge CHF2 for one extra cutlery request.

For what we ate daily and how much it cost, do check out the link to our whole itinerary at the end of this page.

2. Supermarkets

During our trip, we came across 4 supermarkets brands.

In term of price, we can compare them against SG supermarket this way,
Coop - Cold Storage (Priciest).
Migros - NTUC Fairprice Finest.
Denner - Giant Supermarket/Sheng Siong Supermarket.
Aldi Suisse - In between Ang Mo (Hong Mao), Sheng Siong and Giant.
Everyone is saying that Switzerland food are very expensive. If we think logically, if we take away the exchange rate, the prices in these supermarkets are quite similar to SG with some food cheaper than SG. If goods needs to be shipped from Asia to Europe, it will definately cost dearer. This is my personal opinion on groceries only. If we look at shopping experience, the Swisszerland's supermarket definately win us due to its large and cosy shopping environment.

2a) Coop Supermarket

Usually located next to main train stations, we got most of our groceries here. Those located at Zurich HB (picture below) and Interlaken was huge. The ones in Bern we visited were smaller.

Coop Zurich - we also ended up getting our chocolates here.
Funny how, the Victorinox swiss knife cost cheaper by CHF1 or CHF2 than those shops out there.
There are Coop restaurant, Coop take away counter & dine in corner (Check out this link for what we ate at Bern dine in corner), Coop Express that operates on Sundays at Interlaken (Supermarket at Interlaken do not operate on sunday).
Food sold in different locations differ. Usually the freshly baked counters' stocks will be sold out by near 7pm. At Interlaken, since they close at 7pm, we find ourselves looking at a small selection of take away food at 5pm.

Cooked food sold at Bern - Coop City Marktgasse - a place where we could dine in.

Coop Zurich - I love this supermarket. Big and close at 10pm. We were able to get what we want when we return around 6pm.
Coop Interlaken (Top Left picture) - Noticed their take out food looked differnt from those from Bern and Zurich. When we were there around 6pm, most of the food were sold out.

2b. Migros Supermarket.
Quite easily reach in Bern, Zurich and Spiez. There is one at Zermatt, but a small one. Most of its food was sold out when we visited the Zermatt store at 6pm. At Interlaken, they were only at the Interlaken West station which is not as convenient.

I love shopping at the Spiez Migros outlet. It was big and has no crowd. We visited another outlet at Zurich HB station. Small and quite well stocked. Was able to get gluten free chia seed bread (200g) at only CHF2.85. The Anna's Guacamole cost only CHF3.70 for 200g. I don't think I can find these food in SG at these price. The gluten fee bread would definately cost me more than SG$12 in SG.
Just like Coop, Migros also owns restaurants that served affordable food. We visited the Spiez outlet and it was good. Check this link to see what we ate.

2c) Denner Supermarket.

Denner Supermarket.
Only able to come across one such supermarket in Zermatt althought they do have stores in Zurich and Bern. Their stone fruits were cheap. Food prices were cheaper than Coop and Migros.

2d) Aldi Suisse Supermarket.

We only came across this store once in Bern and love it so much. Their things were cheap and their freshly baked tarts, donuts and croissants were cheap and so goooooood....

3. What to shop in Switzerland.

We heard alot of comments on how expensive things are in Switzerland. Are they? Sometimes not. I came across these 2 shops that is worth checking out.

3a. Sport shoes and hiking shoes.

Dosenbach shoe shop at Bern.
Google map - https://goo.gl/maps/aP95aDybv2ZWLiNz6
Their hiking shoes selection was huge and cheap compared to SG. We were spoilt for choices. In the end, we bought something on sale. After converting into SGD, mine cost only SG$52. Tried them out in SG. They were comfortable with good grib.
Sport shoes were cheap too. Adidas and FILA were also much cheaper than SG.
What I love about this store.
A DIY concept store, all stocks were left with the displays. We check out our own sizes, tried them and put them back if size is not correct. No need to ask for assistance and no time wasted. Staff mending payment counter was polite and cheerful as well.
Now I regret not getting a pair of FILA sport shoes as it was really cheap there.

3b. Clothing at C&A.

We came across one shop C&A while walking around Bern on our 1st day visiting Switzerland.

Address : Marktgasse 11, 3000 Bern, Switzerland.

Google map - https://goo.gl/maps/1e1LjS4YteJWwcg28.

Casual comfortable clothing, price range just like Uniqlo or H & M.

Unfortunately, we do not have time to shop on 25 Aug - there were pleanty of stocks for summer wear. When we return on 31st Aug, shop has changed their merchandise into autumn wear which is not suitable for us.

This is quite a nice place to shop but unfortunately, we were a little too late.

4. Chocolates

Everyone said chocolate were cheap in Switzerland and nice. Answer is yes and no.

We came across very cheap chocolates from Migros. Buget brand. A bar of dark chocolate(100g) cost only CHF0.60. I do not want to bring back cheap chocolates just because it is cheap. Lucky we tried one and found that it is not special. So cheap do not mean must bring home.

4a. What to buy home -
Cailler L'Originale Milk Chocolate Branches 5x23g CHF2.95
For milk chocolate lovers.

Camille Bloch Mini Ragusa Chocolates 5x25g CHF4.65
The best of all the chocolates I tried. Dark soft chocolate with Macadamia nuts.

Kagi chocolate wafers - we got them at 3 for CHF7.50.
Something like Kit Kat but I prefer these, not too sweet and more of a wafer biscuit coated with chocolate.

Due to our hot climate, we need to place them in our refrigerator once we reach home. Also, I love it that these were individually packed (except the Kagi wafer) so that it is not messy when eating them bit by bit.

4b. What not to buy or just buy a little.
Lindt chocolates were popular brands we knew before we visited Switzerland. After I tried out Cailler and Ragusa I felt Lindt do not stand out anymore. We ended up buying those not available in SG just to try out.

Lindt Lindor Stick Milk - 4 pcs x 25g - CHF2.95
It is too sweet for my liking. I prefer Cailler over this.

Lindt chocolate balls with fondant. This packet cost me CHF20. We bought those flavours not available in SG and it gave me a shock after weighing.
Lindt chocolate are nice, just that it is too costly.

Villars Noir (Should not buy)- Bought a packet from airport, cannot remember how much. We bought it because it was individually packed and good for sharing. However, it tasted normal. Not worth spending money on it.

5. Souvenirs

What is better to buy other then Swiss knife?

We found a souvenir shop in Bern selling non branded Swiss knife. Though not as sharp as those from Victorinox, it cost less than CHF10 and usable.

Swiss Army Knives from Victorinox
We also noticed Victorinox is cheaper by at least CHF1 each at Big Coop Supermarket next to Zurich HB station.

Honestly we do have not much time for shopping due to the tight timeline we had, we took our time visiting different attractions and ended up no time for shopping. Hope our experience we had still benefit readers here.

Itinearary at at glance.

1. Switzerland 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022 - Getting to know Switzerland's train as a tourist.

2. Arriving Zurich, Switzerland 1/9 day trip 25Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

3. Bern, Switzerland Day 1/9 - 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

4. Arriving Zermatt, Switzerland Day 1/9 - 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022 .

5. Hotel & Solebad Arca, Switzerland Day 1 to 3 - 25 Aug to 2 Sept 2022.

6. Klein Matterhorn, Switzerland. Day 2/9, 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

7. A short hike at Zermatt, Switzerland. Day 2/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

8. Spiez, Switzerland. Day 3/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

9. Switzerland supermarket, Switzerland shopping, what to eat in Switzerland. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.

10. Hotel Brienzersee, Ringgenberg, Switzerland, day 3 to 6. 25 August to 2 Sep 2022.

11. Ringgenberg Castle Ruins, Switzerland. Day 3/9. 25 Aug to 2 Sep 2022.