What to buy
How do Shanghai's supermarkets work, and what is worth buying?
A Shanghai supermarket is worth one deliberate visit: restaurants here are not cheap, and the supermarket is the most direct way to eat breakfast and lunch well and cheaply, as well as the fastest way to see what people actually eat. The most useful kind for a visitor is the food hall in a department store basement, where prepared food, a bakery, fruit and imported goods share one floor, office workers buy their lunch, and no Chinese is needed. Prices are on the shelf rather than at the till, produce is weighed and labelled by the customer, and payment is by phone.
Last updated3 min read
Eating in Shanghai, the expensive end is restaurants and the cheap end is the supermarket rather than the street stall. Breakfast and lunch both work here, cheaply and properly: bread, yoghurt, fruit, plus a portion of prepared food weighed at the counter, for far less than a set meal near an attraction. It is also the quickest read on what this city actually eats, since shelves, cooked-food cases and local baskets say more than any restaurant list. Most visitors never go in, which is the cheapest lesson they miss.
Sorted by what they are for, not by name
Five kinds are in ordinary use.
- The large hypermarket. At the edge of the centre, often a metro ride away, good for one big shop and longer stays.
- The neighbourhood supermarket. In residential streets, walkable, a patchier range but the closest option.
- The convenience store. Not really a supermarket: small portions, things needed immediately, priced for location and hours.
- The imported-goods shop. In the expatriate and business districts, weighted towards Western products and the priciest place for the same thing.
- The food hall in a department store basement. The most useful kind for a visitor, covered next.
The department-store food hall: if you go to one, go here
It usually fills a large department store’s basement floor: prepared food and boxed meals, a bakery, produce, dairy, imported goods and wine along one aisle. Office workers buy lunch here, so the prepared food turns over fast, which beats any hygiene slogan. It is also the easiest place in the city to shop without speaking: point, read the shelf price, hold out your phone. With no Chinese and half an hour you can assemble a decent lunch: a hot dish, a bread roll, a yoghurt, a piece of fruit. Taking it away is normal: a park bench, a hotel room and a train are all normal places to eat it.
What is worth buying, and how it works
Worth buying: prepared food and cold dishes by weight, enough for one meal; anything from the bakery; fruit in season; yoghurt, fresh-dated and varied; bottled drinks; local snacks, more sensible to hand round than a gift box. Not worth buying: anything you can buy at home for less; multipacks and large bottles, whose weight ends up in your luggage; imported goods that are the same everywhere.
Four mechanics. Weigh your own produce and stick the label on the bag; no cashier does it. The price is on the shelf, not at the till, and some member prices need a card, without which you pay standard. Payment is by phone at the till, and cash usually stays in your pocket. Not reading the packaging is no obstacle: the picture and the date are enough.
Can the prepared food be trusted? Mostly yes. The test is concrete: fast turnover, made the same day, hot food hot and the chiller cold. Cold dishes that have sat, braised items that have dulled, cold meats in hot weather and dairy out of the chiller are not. This is not alarmism: supermarkets are easier to trace than street stalls, and packs carry dates.
The one purchase worth making on arrival is a bottle of water and the next morning’s breakfast, bread, yoghurt and fruit, removing the morning search for food. The aisle to skip holds imported goods and gift-boxed snacks, where nothing belongs to this city. For how the market and its cooked-food counter divide the work, see the Shanghai markets and cooked food guide.