You've clearly never tried my cheese, or British raw milk farm house cheese before. Because I guarantee you would not call it crappy. And most of my customers here in ZH, but also online all over Switzerland are Swiss and many are French and Italian. All of those nationalities know what really good cheese is.
I started selling cheese online 13 years ago, so in some ways I'm more of an online shop than a bricks and mortar one.
This December online sales were 70% up on last year (because of Corona, orders from new British customers accounted for most of that) and the week before Christmas I had to switch orders off so we could get an overview on stock, and it was clear we wouldn't have enough to satisfy any more orders, never mind have enough man hours to cut, wrap and pack the for the post.
Most orders for Christmas cheese (this year and previous) are made the last week of Nov and the first of Dec to be posted a week or so before the 24th. We did however get some emails from customers after the shop was closed asking if there was anything we could send, and I'm pretty sure we covered all of those orders.
So please, do me favour and don't discount my cheese because you think it's crappy or my business because the shop is in Zürich, we post parcels to Ticino almost every week.
i apologize - i should have left out the word crappy.
i'm well aware of how good british cheese is, and in fact before covid started was on first name terms with many of the cheese merchants in borough market despite living in ticino. but its not "better" than many of the italian, french and swiss cheeses available to me locally. just different. and for sure, i wouldn't want to eat only british cheese.
as i said - i'm sure your cheese shop is a wonderful place - but i get sick of people local to zurich constantly pushing it as the 'only option'. not just your shop but so many of the posts on a _national_ forum assume everyone lives around there.
NOBODY is going to make that journey JUST to buy cheese. 5 hours round trip!
Feel free to start a thread where you gather your local options. Or how about you open your own local cheese shop? Have fun with figuring out the headache of importing dairy products into Switzerland.
You chose to live in the equivalent of Penzance, if you were to ask about the "something like Globus, with Swiss products" in a British forum, you would more than likely get directed towards London. If you lived in Roscoff, it would be Paris, possibly Nantes.
If you want centre of the universe options, you have to live close to said centre. And yes, I know Zurich is not the centre of the universe but it definitely is higher on the list than your belly button.
Insulting the produce of one of the hardest working, most keenly selective business owners that I know just because you feel excluded is not acceptable. And if you are not able to organise yourself in such a way as to combine errands when you venture out of the boonies, that is on you.
when i 'venture out of the boonies' it certainly isn't to zurich....
i very much doubt anyone would be closed minded enough to recommend a single independent store in London on a national UK forum. but if they did - the same would apply. it would be nonsensical and not generally very helpful.
enjoy your life in the BIG cosmopolitan metropolis....
It's not the only option, as I sell online and deliver all over Switzerland, even Ticino, on a weekly basis. Apart from the week before Christmas of this year (and that's the first time it has happened).
It's a not a Zurich cheese shop, it's a nationwide cheese shop (and I also sell many other non-cheese products online too).
well, it's a shame your particular business was the highlight that happened to trigger my post so I apologize for that. I didn't intend to offer any opinion on your shop of course and it appears to just bad luck that the online part was not operational the moment I checked.
Rather than have a bee in your bonnet about Zürich and the number of suggestions there are for here, just start a thread in food and drink about shop suggestions in Ticino, even ones that offer mail order so we can all benefit.
And especially ones that offer foods similar to what Ocado and Waitrose do, seeing as that is the subject of this thread
I'm not in need of any recommendations thank you, but if someone in canton X posts and asks for recommendations for shops, garages, meetup offerings, or whatever it usually is, it certainly would be nice to have region specific sections of the forum. this is pretty common on many national forums.
not only could they be ignored by those not in that region, they would be unlikely to generate geographically irrelevant responses.
Switzerland is a lot bigger (travel time wise) than people around Zurich tend to give it credit for. It's basically a different country down here.
You will notice that my original reply to OP ( https://www.englishforum.ch/3255362-post4.html ) was both helpful in its suggestions and not region specific while also sharing what I consider some useful advice to people in general who move to a new place and try to replicate exactly what they are used to. I stand by it.
There‘s no point banging on about the forum being Zurich based, if most people on the forum are in or around Zurich. There are a few of us from Ticino here and, as a Ticino newbie, when I have asked for tips or advice they have always been forthcoming.
There is also an English-speaking Lugano group on Facebook that has given me useful information at times.
As for online shopping, that is very much the present and perhaps the future. Many companies (big companies at that) have not made a good transition. I‘ll name Ikea and Galaxus as two examples, but there are many more.
Small companies, like Grumpygrapefruit and the British Cheese Shop often do well because they actually care about their customers. DL21 is right, I wouldn‘t want to eat British cheese all the time when there are also great Swiss and Italian cheeses available locally, but that doesn‘t mean than I don‘t sometimes hanker after a good Cheddar or Wensleydale. It‘s great to know I can get it when I want it, and with online shopping, the fact the store is in Zurich is irrelevant.
We have recently stumbled across Farmy (thanks to the voucher on Enjoy365 website from CSS) and have shifted most of our shopping over to the website. There isn't a huge choice but the quality of fresh stuff is top notch and we've had some lovely meat and fish. Delivery is pricey in most areas but you can buy an abo for unlimited deliveries at a fixed price. We found that we save enough money vs Coop on salad and herbs to offset the delivery fee!
If anyone wants to try them, my link provides us both 20 CHF rebate.
An other one who doesn't get enough attention in life so they need to feel addressed when they're not. BritSaffa is looking for decent food and lives in Zurich. And I quoted roegner.
Nobody gives a hoot what and how crappy food you eat.
Okay, that's not true, MusicChick and Sir WinksAlot do.
Farmy's okay if one has the time to wade through their website and can stomach the immense amount of flowery blurb on each product page. Recently someone showed me where farmy, on a "mince" product page, actually named several dishes one could make with mince. And they explain laboriously that each butcher who supplies the meat does so lovingly and carefully, out of a long family tradition, etc., on and on and on.
I've had terrible experiences with Farmy. They will just replace an item with something else entirely different if what you ordered is out of stock. The raspberries were almost completely mouldy when delivered, sweet potatoes shrivelled up to the size of the palm of my hand and the salad was wilted. They were quick to refund in these instances, so I have to give them that...
Wow I am loving the lively discussion. Just quick update: I am not looking for British cheese lol.
I am looking for a grocery store that has the similar level of quality to Waitrose. I have found Migros below par.
Coop is better but for example you can’t find lamb chops, decent rye bread, whole grain rice, whole grain pasta (at my branch) so just thought what is the sort of “expensive shop” in Switzerland.
In the UK it’s Waitrose but I am not looking for British products per se
IMO, the quality of vegetables and seasonal local fruit at Migros equals or surpasses that of Waitrose.
Butchery - probably better to go to a local butcher and explain what you want. The Swiss-Germans do not want (or do not want to try) the diverse cuts of meat (and choice of animals) you get in many other countries.
Lamb is not popular here. You can get those little racks of lamb but any cuts where the taste is a bit 'stronger' are not popular.
Turkish shops sell lamb.
Coop do sell lamb chops sometimes.
Dry goods. Definitely not so much choice but I don't think the quality is worse.
What you can't do here is go in a supermarket and expect to buy everything you need for a 'foreign' meal. You may have to go to two or three different shops.
Google is great when you need to substitute one ingredient for another.
Manor grocery - they actually sell Waitrose branded products (at least they did the last time I was there when living in Basel). There isn't one in Bern and it has been sorely missed.
Manor has a very nice butcher - and where I would always buy my lamb until I started ordering directly from a farm. The lamb and all meat from this place is simply fantastic (although small portioned in comparison to the UK): https://naturkonkret.abacuscity.ch/de/1~152/Lamm
When I came to Switzerland back in the 70s, I helped out in my aunt's little dairy and grocery shop. The local village women came in with their grocery list, chose their products that weren't behind the counter, and gave their list to the shop assistant for everything else.
Lots of gossip could be had and it was a fantastic place to get to know the local women, although many looked at me as if I were an alien. A teenage American-Swiss girl working in a country "Laden" spread like wildfire, especially since she couldn't speak the language. I was doomed to be damned forever.
Edit: The first time I went into a Manor grocery section, it felt like being in a lollipop shop. Those glorious products of my past were suddenly standing right in front of me! It was glorious!
Manor is the only quality supermarket. Leagues ahead of Migros or Coop. Even so, we get most of our stuff from small independent farm shops. The same places that supply restaurants.