Supermarkets in France, visit a supermarché or hypermarché during your holidays

Visiting a French supermarket during your holiday in France is an experience in itself, as is strolling through the French markets or purchasing artisanal products from local producers. The range is often huge in supermarkets and you will come across very different products than you are used to at home. What types of French supermarkets are there? And which supermarket is the best to go to for affordable groceries: Carrefour, Auchan, Leclerc, Intermarché or another?

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Try French specialties during your holiday

In France, there is a supermarket in almost every town. E.Leclerc is currently the supermarket with the largest turnover and market share in France. Carrefour follows in second. However, Carrefour does have the most stores in France. Many supermarkets are open from Monday to Saturday, and sometimes for several hours on Sundays. Some hypermarchés are even available 24/7. Popular products are the French crisps that are available in special flavors such as camembert, truffle or smoked ham. For those with a sweet tooth, caramels d'Isigny and crunchy cookies such as crêpes, dentelles and galettes are a must. Be sure not to skip the cheese and bread section and fill your basket with dried sausages, local jams, Dijon mustard, French mayonnaise and spreadable pâté.

The most famous supermarkets in France

France has supermarkets in all shapes and sizes. An overview of the most famous stores:

  • E.Leclerc: supermarket chain with the largest turnover in France. They are known for competitive prices and huge hypermarchés. E.Leclerc was one of the first chains with self-service checkouts.
  • Carrefour: a well-known name, especially thanks to its immense hypermarchés. They sell everything from fresh fish to kitchen utensils. The very first hypermarché in France was opened by Carrefour in 1963. Carrefour now exists in various store formats, from large to small: The 'smaller' the Carrefour store concept, the more expensive the products.
  • Auchan: known for its huge hypermarchés where you can easily get lost for a few hours. You will often find inexpensive XXL packaging here.
  • Intermarché: this chain combines local products with competitive offers. The stores often differ in size and atmosphere depending on the region.
  • Super U: a chain with many regional products, popular in smaller towns and villages.
  • Cora: less known to tourists, but loved by the locals because of the wide choice of fresh products.
  • Casino: a supermarket chain that has both large hypermarchés and convenience stores. Their extensive organic range is what makes this supermarket special.
  • Aldi: a trusted name, also in France. Aldi offers affordable groceries and often good French regional products.
  • Lidl: supermarket with many French specialties such as cheese, sausage and wine for low prices.
  • Monoprix: More luxurious supermarket that can only be found in cities. Usually consists of a grocery section with a very varied and quite international selection. Most Monoprix branches also have a separate department store section, with fashionable accessories, home furniture and own-brand clothing (also for children).

Supermarket with the most stores in France

Carrefour is the supermarket chain with the most stores in France. The company has more than 3,300 stores spread throughout the country, under different formats such as Carrefour (hyper- and supermarché), Carrefour Market, Carrefour Contact and Carrefour City. As a result, Carrefour is present in most of France and in almost 41% of cities and towns, in most cases it is even the only supermarket chain without direct competition. Carrefour, however, does not have the largest market share in France, supermarket E.Leclerc has. E.Leclerc has fewer stores, but those stores are on average larger and provide more turnover.

Top 5 supermarkets with the most stores

  • Carrefour – Ca. 3.300
  • Les Mousquetaires (Intermarché en Netto) – ca. 2.100
  • E.Leclerc – Ca. 1.400
  • Système U – Ca. 900
  • Auchan – Ca. 550

Products in the French supermarket

France is known for its many savory snacks, but it is also home to some of the most delicious sweet treats. Take, for example, the caramels d'Isigny, soft, creamy caramel sweets from Normandy. Or the well-known macarons. Also try crêpes Dentelles: thin, crunchy cookies that are delicious on a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Other delicacies are the galettes and palets from Brittany, made with full-fat butter. The cheese department is usually so large that you can wander around the counters for a very long time. From creamy brie and fragrant camembert to spicy roquefort: Sometimes you don't know where to start. But regardless of the cheese you choose, with a baguette and a good glass of wine, you can will enjoy a delicious meal in your holiday home in France. In every French supermarket there is a few meters of saucissons: all sorts of dried sausages. Think of sausages flavoured with walnuts, hazelnuts, pepper or even truffle. They keep for months, so feel free to stock up on a few for home. France is also the land of jam. Strawberry, raspberry, apricot, cherries, peach and fruit combinations: in French supermarkets you will come across rows full of jars.

Of course France is also home to well-known brands such as Bonne Maman, but we recommend discovering the local regional products which are often produced with ingredients directly from the French countryside. In French supermarkets, you will often be welcomed with the smell of freshly baked bread. You must indulge in baguettes, a French classic for every meal. Warm croissants and pains au chocolat are always delicious with a cup of coffee or as a snack. For on the go, a simple sandwich jambon-beurre, a baguette with ham and butter, is a good choice. Simple, fresh and typically French. In French supermarkets you will find all kinds of oils: olive oil, walnut oil, hazelnut oil and even truffle oil. Delicious in a salad or over roasted vegetables. If you really want to enjoy Burgundian food during your holiday in France, buy rillettes in the supermarket. This is a spreadable, slow-cooked meat pie that is usually made from pork. There are also variants with duck, goose or chicken. Delicious on a piece of crispy baguette, together with a glass of wine. If you prefer to stick to the familiar, opt for a delicious pâté.

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Difference Between a Supermarché and a Hypermarché

One of the best things during your holiday in France are the huge supermarkets. Some are larger than the inner city of a large city and they sell just about everything. These supermarkets are open until late at night and even on Sundays until twelve o'clock in the afternoon. Yet there is a difference between large supermarkets and mega-large supermarkets. The latter are known as Hypermarchés in France. A supermarché is a regular supermarket that is smaller than 2,500 square meters. A Hypermarché is an extra-large supermarket with a minimum surface area of 2,500 square meters.

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Supermarchés are more often found in villages, city districts or smaller towns and are more focused on daily or quick shopping. Here you will find mainly food and a more limited range of non-food products. Hypermarchés are found in all regions of France and are usually located on the outskirts of towns or near major roads, often with plenty of parking spots. They are intended for the weekly big grocery shop. These stores offer a very wide range of products, not only food, but also non-food products such as clothing, electronics, household items and sometimes even bicycles and garden furniture. You can almost always refuel at a Hypermarché, they have a car rental service (vans) and even have washing machines (laveries) where you can do laundry 24 hours a day. France has more than 2,000 Hypermarchés. The largest supermarket in France has an area of no less than 25,000 square meters. In comparison, a football field is about 7,000 square meters.

Hypermarché

People often think that a Hypermarché is characteristic of France, but the concept comes from America and Canada. It was not even France that brought this concept to Europe either, the first Hypermarché was built in Belgium, in 1961 in Bruges. It was not until two years later that the first Hypermarché arrived in France: the Carrefour in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris. Fun fact: it is becoming more and more common for the shop staff to use roller skates! In hypermarchés such as Cora near Charleville and Carrefour Quétigny (Dijon), employees on roller skates slide between the cash registers in order to help customers faster. This creates a cheerful and dynamic atmosphere, and is a typical French scene that visitors often remember. The chain with the most hypermarchés with a surface area of over 10,000 m² is the Carrefour. Carrefour tops the list, followed by Auchan and E.Leclerc, but Carrefour in particular has dozens of branches that exceed this size. Auchan and Leclerc follow with slightly smaller branches, but Carrefour is particularly dominant in the "mega-hypermarché" segment.

Top 10 largest French hypermarchés

The ten hypermarchés with the largest surface area in France are mainly branches of Carrefour, Auchan, E.Leclerc and Cora.

  1. Carrefour Villiers-en-Bière (Île-de-France) – around 25.000 m²
  2. Auchan Vélizy 2 (Vélizy) – over 21,800 m²
  3. Auchan Roncq (Northern France) – approx. 20,000 m²
  4. Carrefour Portet-sur-Garonne (Toulouse) – ca. 18,000 m²
  5. Leclerc Brest (Brittany) – ca. 15.000 m²
  6. Cora Mundolsheim (Strasbourg) – ca. 13,000 m²
  7. Auchan Aubagne (Provence) – ca. 13.000 m²
  8. Carrefour Ecully (Lyon) – ca. 12,000 m²
  9. Leclerc Roques-sur-Garonne (Toulouse) – ca. 12.000 m²
  10. Hyper U Saran (Orléans) – ca. 12.000 m²

The cheapest and most expensive supermarkets in France

According to market research by Que Choisir, the French Consumer Association, newspaper Le Parisien and website Statista,  the price differences between the most famous French supermarkets are large. On average, there is up to 17% difference between the most expensive and the cheapest supermarket. This can amount to a difference of about €60 between a full shopping cart at the most expensive French supermarket (Casino) and the cheapest supermarket (E. Leclerc). The German chains Lidl and Aldi are not included in this study. E.Leclerc is known as the price leader in the French market and has the largest market share, thanks in part to competitive prices and a wide range of house brand products. Intermarché and Super U also focus strongly on competitive prices, which makes them attractive to people who are watching their spending. All three chains have affordable house brands (e.g. Eco at Leclerc, TopBudget at Intermarché, BienVu at Super U), which are often cheaper than A-brands and score well in terms of quality. Carrefour is having a harder time, the hypermarkets in particular are losing ground. However, the company remains a major player and is committed to digitization and sustainability, for example by stopping the usage of paper leaflets.

Top 3
Cheapest French supermarkets

1. Leclerc
2. Intermarché
3. Super U

Top 3
Most Expensive French Supermarkets

1. Casino
2. Auchan
3. Carrefour

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Supermarkets with organic products

Chains that are 100% organic and often largely fair trade are Biocoop, Naturalia and Bio c'Bon. La Vie Claire and Naturalia are ideal for lovers of healthy, vegetarian and vegan options. Between all supermarkets, Monoprix and Carrefour Market have the largest range of organic products by far. But organic products are well represented in almost all supermarkets. In the larger French supermarkets, products are now also 'en vrac' or without packaging (in dispensers, scoop trays or tap) and meat substitutes are also much easier to find than before. The supermarket chain in France with the cheapest organic products is Lidl.

Fresh and frozen products

Grand Frais: The name says it all, this supermarket chain specializes in fresh products. It almost looks like a large covered market, with large departments of fresh vegetables, fruit, dairy, fish, meat, herbs, seeds and nuts.
Picard Surgelés: This chain of stores only has frozen products in a wide and luxurious range. Think of healthy ready-made meals, beautiful (bake-off) cakes and desserts, and a large collection of chic dishes for l'apéro (drinks).

Cigarettes and medicines

It is not possible to buy a pack of cigarettes in a supermarket in France. In France, they may only be sold at tobacconists (le tabac) that can be recognized by red 'carrot-shaped' signs. You can't get a painkiller such as paracetamol or a box of Norit in a French supermarket either. Medicines can only be purchased at pharmaciesand chemists.

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