Visiting Prague

Prague has an increasing number of supermarkets and hypermarkets, competing between with each other. Most neighborhoods will have at least one supermarket, so it won’t be very difficult to find one nearby the place you are accommodated. Big supermarkets can be a bit crowded, but you will find big choice of food. Some tourists find Czech national cuisine full of heavy reliance on meats, cream sauces, fats and instead of going to Czech restaurant prefer to cook themselves. Or visitors with limited budget can combine dinners in restaurants with dinners at home. If you have the possibility of making your own food and prefer cold meals cooked by yourself, it would be a good idea to go shopping in Prague’s grocery shops instead of big supermarkets. And of course, if you need to find the cheapest solution, it will be shopping at the local supermarkets.

In Prague you will find such large international chains like Tesco and Carrefour with massive stores, Interspar and Globus - less well known to Brits but still enormous, as well as the smaller local supermarkets – Albert, Delvita and others. Beside the hypermarkets and shopping centers around Prague you have other options like smaller shops in the neighborhoods.

In Prague stores tend to open at 8 or 9 a.m., but larger supermarkets at 7 a.m. and close at 6 or 7 p.m. or even stay open until 8 or 10 p.m., or even later - and are also open on weekends. Small shops can be closed during lunch hours and the hours are shorter on Saturdays and most stores don’t work on Sundays. Be aware that most stores are closed on Christmas (during 3 days) and Easter.

In Prague hotels and most of the shops require to use a shopping basket or trolley if you don’t use it can be considered bad manners and the staff may even complain. Pay attention when you buy fruits or vegetables, you have to weight yourself on the electronic scales provided in the shop if products are not individually wrapped and priced.
The Tesco brand of hypermarkets is well-known and operated in a dozen countries outside Britain and Ireland including China, South Korea and the United States and , so it’s no wonder Prague has its too. This brand appeared in 1996, when British retailer Tesco bought the from the U.S. discount chain Kmart Communist-era Máj department store. With reconstructions and reorganizations he turned the Máj into a well-organized modern shopping center. Tesco opened its first store in the Czech Republic also in 1996 in one of its first overseas moves. Now Tesco runs 93 stores in the Czech Republic, that cover 4 million sq ft of selling space, nearly a fifth of its floor space in the UK. Tesco sells a wide range of products and much of it comes from its local Czech suppliers but some from foreign importers. In Prague there are several big TESCO department stores that sell a large selection of food, clothes and hardware for any and all of your needs. Tesco has excellent fresh and cooked foods, fruits and vegetables, baked goods and fresh meat and poultry, large selection of fresh fish, non-perishables etc. There is also a big choice of alcoholic and non-alcoholic soft drinks available. What is especially convenient for customers is that the store is open until 10 pm on weekdays (8 or 9 on weekend).
Albert Supermarket is the main competitor of TESCO and it daily offers a wide choice of all grocery products, vegetables, meat and other goodies. It belongs to Ahold Central Europe (ACE) originated in January 2003 and joined forces of Ahold sister companies in Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic. Nowadays the Ahold Central Europe sale network has more than 505 Albert supermarkets and Hypernova hypermarkets in the whole Central Europe. The Dutch company Ahold, even plans to re-brand all Hypernova (other chain of this company) as Albert by the end of 2008.
Another supermarket chain is Billa. In 1991 the Austrian company entered the Czech market and opened their first store in Brno. Since that Billa’s domestic growth has been increasing steady, with an average of 7 to 8 new shops opening each year. And now German REWE-group owners the Billa supermarket chain and plans to take over the Czech outlets of rival Belgian retailer Delvita. Delvita acquisition is considered as Billa’s largest expansion within the Czech Republic. German REWE-group hopes to acquire all existing Delvita shops and re-brand them under the Billa name already by the end of 2008. Delvita is not the only supermarket chain that has bankrupt; it is the fourth retail chain to leave the Czech market in the last two years. Before it Julius Meinl, Edeka and Carrefour had to leave the Czech Republic, where competition for retails chains is becoming increasingly tough.
Beside supermarkets and hypermarkets, there are also open-air markets in Prague. The largest market is the Prazská Trznice near Vlatavska metro in Prague 7. In that market you will find almost anything from vegetables and fruits to furniture and hardware to portable stereos and CDs. The prices in such markets are usually much lower than in the shops though the selection is limited.

Trackback URI |