I've been making it a point to visit grocery stores in every country I visit for the last 10 years. I tend to agree with you that grocery stores tend become homogenized within a country (and not just in the US), but there's always a lot of variation between countries.
You'll probably find this strange, but as a foreigner, I was really excited to see Walmart for the first time, and I found it just as interesting as visiting grocery stores in other countries.
There are things there that just seem comically American - like there's a McDonald's inside a supermarket! And there's a section where you can pick up guns and ammo while you're buying milk and eggs!
The chocolates section contains the same products as every other store across North America, but I'd never seen any of these while growing up in Australia, so we picked up a lot of these. Even basic things like bread taste different from back home.
Other stores are interesting in different ways. The size and scale of Costco is insane. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's carry different brands of everything, so it feels very different shopping there.
I'm really looking forward to my next visit to the States, and picking up the bacon flavored popcorn from Trader Joe's. I've never seen this anywhere else in the world, and it's as awesome as it sounds :)
You'll probably find this strange, but as a foreigner, I was really excited to see Walmart for the first time, and I found it just as interesting as visiting grocery stores in other countries.
There are things there that just seem comically American - like there's a McDonald's inside a supermarket! And there's a section where you can pick up guns and ammo while you're buying milk and eggs!
The chocolates section contains the same products as every other store across North America, but I'd never seen any of these while growing up in Australia, so we picked up a lot of these. Even basic things like bread taste different from back home.
Other stores are interesting in different ways. The size and scale of Costco is insane. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's carry different brands of everything, so it feels very different shopping there.
I'm really looking forward to my next visit to the States, and picking up the bacon flavored popcorn from Trader Joe's. I've never seen this anywhere else in the world, and it's as awesome as it sounds :)