The Illusion of Choice in Supermarkets—What You’re Not Seeing

American supermarkets have more choice... well in ONE way...

Thank you so much for watching! Hope you enjoyed it!

Video chapters:
0:00 Hook & Intro
0:30 The amount of products in British vs American supermarkets
3:59 The first illusion of choice in the supermarket (globally)
6:45 How often do Americans and Brits go to the shops?
8:45 Walking to an American supermarket
9:53 Dutch Data
10:13 One Reason Why Many Europeans Shop for Groceries More Often
11:21 How Big are US Supermarkets Compared to Britain and Germany?
12:45 One of the biggest reasons I prefer European Supermarkets
13:20 What are Ultra Processed Foods?
14:00 How much of US and EU supermarkets and diets are UPFs?
15:32 One Big Reason Europe Supermarkets are Different
16:24 What Does a Typical UK and US Supermarket Floor Plan Look Like?
17:20 Why You Shouldn't Shop At Target
18:03 An Alternate Solution
18:22 How America Could Solve This Problem
20:00 SPON
21:07 Outro

If you're new to my channel and videos, hi! I'm Evan Edinger, and I make weekly "comedy" videos every Sunday evening. As an American living in London I love noticing the funny differences between the cultures and one of my most popular video series is my British VS American one. I'm also known for making terrible puns so sorry in advance. Hope to see you around, and I'll see you next Sunday! :)

If you want to know HOW I make my videos including gear, lighting, all the tiddly bits that connect it all together, (with cheaper alternatives and kit I used to use), I've listed each item, what it's great at, and why I use it on the gear section of my website here:

Otherwise: here's a quick list of some of my kit without descriptions from the above link:

Camera: Sony A7siii

Main Lens: Sony 24mm f/1.4 G-Master

Secondary Lens: Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 G-Master

Main Light: Aputure 120d mkii

Shotgun Microphone: Sennheiser MKH-416

Really useful SSD: SanDisk Extreme Portable 2TB

[triscuitbiscuit]

I was confused when you said "This is your standard juice section." I was like.... "uhhhh do you know what juice is???" And then you clarified that you aren't blind. 🤣

[aabsurdity]

A path? No, that's a "desire path", which is where people have created a path around the paved/authorised walking areas. There's a subreddit.

[pieflower]

15:50 I did notice the chocolate bars next to the checkout had been replaced with protein bars and dried fruit but I'd never realised there was a new law supporting this! That makes more sense now.

[TheRainbowCoach]

I'm actually Dutch but concerning shopping I'm really German: I just want what I need and I trust it to be a good product and reasonably priced. 🤷🏽‍♂️🙃

[golden_gloo]

Does "just popping" anywhere even exist in the US? Seems like everywhere you'd want to go is a car drive away.

[iancomputerscomputerrepair]

Just for your info, if you didn't already know Evan, is that Trader Joes is owned by Aldi Nord.

[TalesOfWar]

Choice paralysis is a thing. Tesco did a trial with a bunch of jams and other preserves. People stopped buying them. Any of them. They reverted to a smaller selection and sales went up again. Well, back to normal.

[Miichaninwonderland]

One great thing about my country (and I'm sure it's a thing in a lot of other places too) are farmers markets that are usually very close to supermarkets and grocery stores. So essentially, not only do I live close to a grocery store, I can also see whether the potatoes are better in store or does the lady at the farmers market has better ones that day 😅 It's good to be reminded what a blessing these things are, especially when we're so used to them being normal.

[sophieishere]

i think I'd have a mental breakdown trying to shop in America 😂

[cozyclarinetist]

As someone who grew up and will probably never leave NJ (unfortunately lol), I really appreciate the constant references/deep dives into to the garden state. I grew up in sussex county where for me, the nearest grocery store was a 25 minute drive away.

Although, I love nature and appreciate that area, I now crave more walkable places and will probably be moving to a more walkable town next year. To me "walkable" used to mean walking along a precarious shoulder whereas to my partner it means sidewalks, bike lanes and downtown within walking distance. I dream about walking to a park to hammock, popping downtown to grab a coffee or grabbing some fresh produce at a market. One day! 🤞

[pierre-jeromebergeron]

There's basically only 2 kinds of cookies at the local Safeway: Chips Ahoy in like 70 different flavors and Oreos in 93 different flavors. Coming from Canada, we didn't have that many flavors of those (maybe 3-4 of each), but we also had Maple Leaf creme cookies (multiple brands, Leclerc being possibly the best), Fudgeeos, the Dare version of Fudgeeos whatever it is called, the crème françaises cookies disappeared a long time ago. but there's the other sandwich cookies with that little fruit flavored rubber thing in the middle. In any case, technically fewer flavors, but a lot more cookie variety (and brands though they might all be from the same conglomerate company in the end). So yeah, I do feel that illusion of choice. Same with beers, there's a gazillion microbrew IPAs but try to find one amber ale...

[montyollie]

Canadian here, who lives 45 minutes from the border, and frequently "cross border shops." To my Canadian eyes, the selection in American stores is staggering. Also the insanely liberal coupon policies. Also, it's a fun day out. Canada is somewhere in the middle. Way less selection but hyper overprocessed and only a few mega corporations represented and a lean towards car-culture.

[Jordyb]

I’m loving this series, it’s just Evan getting progressively more accepting how British he’s getting and increasingly frustrated with Americanisms 😂

[samsamamb]

I can't believe the Aussie Coles & Woolies duopoly was mentioned!

[onlyfineinclines]

Is freedom possessing the ability to choose between 20 brands of cereal or being able to puruse life goals regardless of the material conditions one is born into?

[EmwithanE]

As a American living in Britain I agree and I’m glad that you pointed this out. I try to explain to my friends back home about how different things are here like that (so random I know) and it’s so hard but like it really was a culture shock moving here especially living in rural Britain

[onewhoisanonymous]

Just moved to the UK: The food is fresher and my shopping is much faster than when I was living in the USA. I am not staring at aisles upon aisle trying to make a choice. I don't mind going more often but the issue is I snack more now. My brain just goest "the shop is just next door, I can just get a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps/chips or a drink or dessert"

Also because of you I had to pop down to my local Sainsbury's to get some ice cream. I don't hate the ice cream in the UK, but it isn't good either.

I find the food selection in the UK good enough and some items I do prefer over the US counterpart, but oh do I miss larger containers of sauces, higher selection of cheeses, and some other items.

[spicejazz]

Genuinely up until last year, I thought target was like tk max because of all the videos online of people showing off the ‘new in’ stuff.

[peter]

One of the reasons why ALDI is doing so well in the US

[eyeofthetiger]

More choices doesn't necessarily mean more quality though, it just means more added artificial junk ingredients to give you those endless flavour options!😅 Perhaps the closest analogy is your cheap and cheerful high street Chinese restaurants where the menu options can run to several pages long but quality takes a backseat to quantity whereas a more upmarket Chinese restaurant will feature all of their menu offerings on just one or two pages but the raw ingredients are of infinitely better quality.