Whats Inside an American Supermarket
hi everyone today we’re going to be
talking about everyday culture in the US
last time we talked about American
convenience stores and how their unique
this time we’re going to talk about
American supermarkets a supermarket also
known as a grocery store is a one-stop
location where people can purchase foods
drinks and basic household supplies
there are currently over 38,000
supermarkets in the United States fees
range from small family-owned stores to
huge corporate super stores the first
supermarket was a locally owned shop
called Piggly Wiggly that was 100 years
ago these days the supermarket industry
is dominated by big brands like Kroger
Walmart and Costco these stores are
massive the size of an average Costco is
about 145,000 square feet that’s about
the size of three professional soccer
fields because of the size of these
stores a wider variety of goods is
available than an average supermarkets
in other countries in 1975 there was an
average of about 8,000 different items
in the typical supermarket by 2008
however that number had increased to
about 47,000 different items
supermarkets in the US include huge
sections that are hard to find in other
countries these include meats cheeses
cereals and produce many of these
sections are unaffected by any kind of
seasonal limitations and so you can find
these products year-round there are
several key vocabulary words for
supermarkets in the US the dairy section
is where you can find yogurt milk and
cheese in the produce section you can
find fresh fruit and vegetables meat
sections are usually where you can buy
fresh cuts of beef pork and chicken
packaged lunch meats can be purchased in
the deli section there’s also a huge
variety of packaged goods find entire
aisles devoted to things like beans
grains cereals and pasta if you’d like
to try to cook something quickly you can
also find a lot of things in the frozen
food section some supermarkets also have
bakeries where you can buy premade
breads pastries and other items while in
some countries it’s common to find a
huge selection of fish and spices at
supermarkets in the US it’s very common
to find huge selections of cheese and
snack foods processed foods and dairy
are some of the most commonly
just items at supermarkets in the US
despite the huge variety and
availability of out-of-season goods
prices at supermarkets in the US have
remained low a gallon of milk is around
$3 500 grams of cheddar cheese is as
little as two dollars one kilogram of
beef is less than eight dollars and
apples are less than one dollar each
some things are more expensive at
supermarkets in the u.s. a great example
of this is seafood for example in places
which are landlocked or surrounded by
land with no access to the ocean good
quality seafood is hard to find because
of this there’s a limited variety of
seafood and most of it is frozen goods
sold at some supermarkets in the United
States are much larger than goods in
other countries at warehouse Styles
super stores you can buy items in bulk
bulk items are items you can buy a large
amount of at one time these supermarkets
usually offer two ways to checkout or
pay for your items the first way is for
a cashier to take each individual item
from an automatic conveyor belt the
second way is with self checkout
customers take their items to a self
checkout machine scan each item and then
pay at the machine directly at the
machine customers are required to pack
their purchases into bags at the cashier
either a cashier or an attendant will
pack the customers goods into bags these
methods are equally popular and you can
use cash or a credit card to finish your
payment so how do supermarkets in the US
compared to supermarkets in your country
what’s similar what’s different and is
there anything else you’d like to know
about culture in the u.s. please let us
know in the comments if you liked this
video please don’t forget to give it a
thumbs up subscribe to our channel if
you haven’t already and if you’d like to
learn more about culture in the US click
the link in the description to get a
free lifetime account and start learning
with us today see you next time
my two ways two ways to check out
can you see it warehouse style or super
store style store super store style
stores I tried to say that and I was not
good and and is there anything else
you’d like to know about culture
[Music]
[Applause]