In accordance with providing content related to the survival guide for International Students in Tallinn, this article will be focusing on grocery shopping in some grocery stores in Tallinn and how to choose what to buy from where. We will be comparing four grocery stores and these are Selver ABC (formerly known as Comarket), Rimi, Prisma and Maxima. This is based on personal experience and some responses from some international students.
As students, it is very important that we are able to get the most for our money, therefore we need to find places where we can get things the cheapest. First of all, we are going to start with the most student-friendly supermarket and the number one pick goes to Maxima. This is one of the cheapest stores to get most groceries from. I know this because the first few days I came to Estonia, this was the first store I and a couple of friends were brought to for some groceries shopping (eggs, vegetable oil, pastries, yogurts etc). Well, no matter how cheap this place sounds, there are some things that you can find cheaper somewhere else and these are mostly vegetables (tomatoes, onions, carrots, etc.) in my opinion.
The next option is Selver ABC, which I have observed to be the least student friendly supermarket from the list. It is the most expensive of all and sometimes it is actually double the price when compared to others. But here are also some things you would find cheaper here compared to others and these are vegetables (carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, etc), fruits are also less expensive here.
Another place to get a good bargain for your money is Prisma, this is also a student friendly store and I will tell you in what ways. Here, you will always find some items available to buy by kilo and the particular groceries I am talking about are rice and pastas in particular. It is usually cheaper to buy these by the kilo. For the rice, you will find 2kg bags for around 3 euros or a little over but less than 4 euros depending on what you like. Different types of pasta such as Fusilli, Penne and the likes can be found in 1kgs for less than 1 euro. When it is a discount week, fruit such as bananas are cheap as you are likely to get a kg of bananas for less than 1 euro. A wider choice of products that are lactose and gluten free can also be found in this store. Another advantage is that you can get products at any time of the day because it is a 24/7 supermarket.
Last but not least, my favourite of all of them is Rimi, and the simple reason is because there is always a discount sale every other week. This is a student’s dream. Vegetables are not usually the cheapest here but when there is a discount sale, you can get them cheap. Vegetables like tomatoes, spinach, bell peppers, mushrooms, etc. For instance, you can get a pack of button mushrooms for as low 99 cents. There are always 2 or 3 for 1 euro deals here. Some of these items are canned produce, like chickpeas, sweet corn, green peas and sometimes canned tomatoes. Others include popcorn, shampoos, body sprays, cookies etc. For chickpea lovers like me, during this period you can get 3 cans of chickpeas for as low as 1 euro. So, the trick here is to always look out for these discount sales for a better buy on groceries that would have been otherwise too expensive.
A little advice would also be to try and get the customer card of some of these supermarkets as they are usually only 1 euro, this will come in handy during these sales.
In summary, Rimi has the best deals because of their discount sales, you will be sure to get vegetables at a cheaper rate at Selver ABC. It is better to buy things like rice and pasta by the kilo at Prisma whichis sure to have good deals on most food items. Finally, Maxima is the least expensive of all these supermarkets.
Written by Angela