It is time to do some comparative shopping between grocery store items in Spain and equivalent ones in Canada. I’m sure this is of much greater interest to you than what my next article will talk about… buying your groceries in Estepona and in Spain in general.
This post was originally meant to be a one-photo post on my personal Facebook page to show friends at home the sorts of things I like to buy and consume here in Spain. And yes, I have purchased and consumed similar products at different grocery stores here, and I much prefer all the ones we buy at the Mercadona where these purchases were all made. So, knowing how much each of these items cost… they seemed pretty inexpensive to me… I went in search of equivalent Canadian products, and their current pricing. So here we go!
Searching for Canadian Products Online
Searching the price for Canadian products was much more difficult than I assumed it would be. Because we are in Spain, I was not allowed to access several websites. I was blocked from accessing either the Loblaws or Sobeys websites… principal chains in our area. I have had this experience with Home Depot in previous years as well.
Fortunately, I was able to get into the online shopping space of a local grocery store at home where we frequently shop that is not part of any chain, so probably flying below the radar. I was also able to access the Walmart Canada site… where we never shop. The Canadian photos that I will share with you are from our local grocery store or from Walmart.ca.
When the Love-goddess and I have both been questioned previously about what we felt the cost of living was like in Spain as compared to Canada, we both would typically say that it felt cheaper, but we had never drilled down into the numbers. Today that changes, and I am going to do some comparative price shopping with this little bundle of favourite goods of mine.
My Basket of Goods
So, have a look at the products in the first photo below so you can see what sorts of things I enjoy buying here in Spain. I have an absolutely favourite chain of grocery stores here, that being the Mercadona group. And as you will see in the image, many of my favourite products are branded with Mercadona’s own product line, Hacendado, much in the same way that Loblaws offers President’s Choice products.
I realized a couple days after I took the picture that I had also left out a very important purchase, the white Rijoa wine we buy here, “El Coto”. You will see a picture of it later. And please forgive me for using a stick of bread that already has a chunk cut out of it. :-)And please forgive me for using a stick of bread that already has a chunk cut out of it. 🙂
The approach I will take is to look at each of these individual products, tell you how much they cost us recently, and present some screenshots of comparable purchases at home along with their pricing. To make the comparison more direct and specific, I will breakdown the numbers so that we are comparing things as precisely as possible e.g. price per litre or price per 100 mL.
I’m going to be using photo carousels here again in places, so please remember that to have each collection pop up into a much larger view you simply click on the first image on the left-hand side and then sift your way through the pictures.
Orange Juice – Zumo de Naranja
First up, a product that I buy all the time at home and all the time here in Spain, orange juice. Or, as it is referred to here, Zumo de Naranja. The United States and Spain are ranked sixth and seventh in countries that grow oranges around the world. Brazil leads the way. The net result is lots of orange juice is available here in Spain and in Canada as well. It’s a very standard grocery item in both countries, and not a terribly exotic item.
When I convert euros to Canadian dollars, I will be using the currency exchange rate that I am paying on my purchases. I can track this because I make all our grocery purchases with a charge card that shows me the exact conversion rate when I look up our purchases online. We use a charge card that specifically does not add on extra currency charges as most cards do when making a purchase in a foreign country.
You will see in the photos the orange juice that I buy in Spain, costs €2.00 ($3.12) for a 1 L bottle. A similar item purchased at home might be the 1.54 L bottle of Simply Orange that sells for $5.48. That works out to $3.60 per litre.
The caveat that I probably should add is what you may already be thinking, “well I know I can buy that cheaper when it’s on sale or in larger volumes “. That is true but for the purposes of this comparison, because I am paying full shelf price for all the products here, that’s what I will use to compare it with the Canadian purchase I might typically make at home.
Lowest Price – Spain, but not by much and questionable
Soup – Gazpacho
This is a Spanish dish that you have probably heard about and may even have tried at some point. Gazpacho is a Spanish soup made from vegetables that is eaten cold. And no, it is not just tomato soup, and no it does not taste like tomato soup. It has its own unique, but subtle flavor. I can always taste the cucumber in it. Its special texture is brought about in part using stale day-old bread in the recipe.
Unlike packaged soups at home, it is sold fresh in containers and stored in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. We pay €2.85 for a 1 L container and that works out to be $4.45 Canadian. Bottom line the cost is $.45 per 100 L.
It was a little difficult comparing this soup directly with the ready-made soups that we buy at home. I did find that at our local grocery store and at Walmart, 1 L tetra boxes of soup are available. They had the same soups on offer but at Walmart the charge was only $7.08 or $.71 per 100 L.
I think a fairer comparison might be the large, canned soup that we frequently buy, Habitat Pea Soup. This comes in a 796 mL can and was on sale for $3.99 when I looked. This works out to approximately $.50 per 100 ml.
Lowest Price – Spain
Bread Stick – Barra Pan
I do love the bread here especially these little inexpensive sticks of goodness. The ones that I buy cost €0.50 apiece… $.78 Canadian. There is no bread product at home that you can purchase at that low price.
The baguettes that we buy would be the only thing comparable and normally we will pay $3.99 or sometimes $3.59. Occasionally, you can find one for $2.99, but still there is no comparison.
Lowest Price – Spain
Ice Cream Bar – Negro Preto
We have been eating these little beauties here in Spain since 2017. I once said to the Love-goddess that I thought that the grocery stores in Spain don’t know how to “gouge” customers because they were so cheap. 🙂 I think they taste as good as Häagen-Dazs bars but the ones that I would compare them to at home would be the “Magnum” ice cream bars you can find in most grocery stores.
The “Negro Preto” bars (the name appears to be both Spanish and Portuguese, with both words meaning Black) cost us €3.40 for a box of six. Individual bars are 120 mL each. That works out to $5.31 Canadian or $.74 per 100 mL. The Magnum bars in Canada are 85 mL each and a box of three cost $5.48. That works out to $2.15 per 100 mL.
Lowest Price – Spain
Potato Chips – Patatas Fritas
I actually do not eat a lot of potato chips, but when I want a salty snack, I guess they would be my “go-to”. In the two months that we are here I will probably purchase a couple of bags of these salty delights. They are lighter and tastier than the potato chips we get at home. I love them. 🙂
Mercadona’s Patatas Fritas Clásicas come in a 300 g paper bag, with the chips sealed in two light plastic bags inside. One bag costs €1.90 or $2.95 Canadian. This works out to $.98 per 100 g
In Canada chips tend to come in two different sizes 200 g or 235 g. Looking at the chips that I would normally buy, Miss Vicki’s, or Lays if Miss Vicki’s are not available, the price per 100 g breaks down as follows. Miss Vicki’s cost $4.97 at Walmart, which is $2.49 for 100 g. The Lays are $3.97 so $1.69 per 100 g
You will have noticed a trend developing in the cost comparison to between Spanish and Canadian products.
Lowest Price – Spain
Beer – Cerveza
And now we move on to adult beverages. The brand of beer I typically buy here in Spain is Cruzcampo. I much prefer beer out of a bottle over cans – in cans is how beer is primarily sold here. You can occasionally find beer in smaller bottles, but I always buy the big ones. The Love-goddess and I can share one bottle anytime we decide that the “cocktail hour” has arrived. To quote Jimmy Buffett and Alan Jackson “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere”. 🙂
Bottled beer here primarily comes in 1 L bottles. These bottles are always on sale for €1.34 or $2.09 Canadian. Doing a comparison with beer at home is a little more difficult because we don’t have one litre bottles, so my comparison involves the cost of two 473 mL “Tall Boys” ($2.75 each on sale) of Molson Canadian… 943 mL in total. The cost of two of these (a little less than a litre) works out to be $5.50.
Lowest Price – Spain
Wine – Vino
If the cost difference comparison in beer did not break your heart, wine certainly will. 🙂 The white wine we typically buy in Spain is called “El Coto”, a white Rioja, which consistently sells for €4.15. That works out to $6.48 per 750 mL bottle. I don’t have to provide an example for you to understand that the cost is profoundly different… But I will.
In the second of the four images of beer and wine below, you will see a three pack of wine being sold in our local Mercadona for €13.89. That works out to $21.68, so $7.23 per bottle. I picked this particular offering to show you because in Ontario we can buy that exact same “Cune” wine in our LCBO. A single bottle of the red costs $17.95 each… three would cost $53.85. OUCH!
Lowest Price – Spain
Pricing Differences
This price comparison demonstrates that the argument can be made that grocery shopping tends to be less expensive on the Costa del Sol than in Canada. When broken down into equivalent measures and done in Canadian dollars, all the items in this little sample are cheaper to buy in Spain.
Now, I would have to admit this is not the best research and that probably a little deeper investigation into the matter is probably required. To that end I think if we come back this way again, I’m going to bring some receipts from home showing what we have paid for items there and compare them to similar items in Spain.
I did a bit of a price comparison once before in a 2023 post because it was incredibly obvious how much less expensive cheese was in Spain compared to the price at home. Of course, a lot of that is due to the dairy protection policies in Canada… which I am fine with. But it does end up meaning we pay more for Canadian cheese and considerably more for imported cheeses. The block of Emmental cheese I bought in 2023 cost €2.98, approximately $4.50 CAD for 350 g ($1.29 per 100 g) … and back then Emmental sold at Walmart for $8.07 for 220gm ( $3.67 per 100 g) … WOW!
If you are interested, have a look at the receipt that accompanied the purchase of some of the goods examined above. Shown are the original and the translation of the Spanish to English as produced using the camera function in Google translate… and the Emmental.
UPDATE – When I went to make myself an omelet for breakfast this morning, I realized I could have included the cost of a dozen eggs in my little presentation. I added the receipt from the last time we bought eggs for you to have a look at. One dozen large eggs cost us €2.80, that is $4.32. Compare that to your own next egg purchase.
Food Quality
The final word on this food observation is that the Love-goddess and I are in agreement that the food here in Spain is of a way higher quality than what we get at home. The meats actually have flavour, and the fruits and vegetables are consistently fresher, and tastier. What people put into their bodies – and how it tastes are very high priorities here – perhaps not as much emphasis on the shipping and cost factors. Food for thought.
