SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

COST OF LIVING

EXPLAINED: 8 ways to save money on your groceries in Switzerland

With the cost of living going up, many of us are thinking of ways to spend a little less. Here are some tips on how you can save money when grocery shopping in Switzerland.

Shop in season to save money when it comes to fruit and vegetables.
Shop in season to save money when it comes to fruit and vegetables. Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash

Think about the supermarket where you shop

A lot of the time, food items cost a similar amount in different shops. But there are many items that are available at much lower prices than the competition. Discounters like Denner, Aldi and Lidl offer some products at a much cheaper price than the two largest retailers Coop and Migros. You can check out the articles below to compare prices. 

READ ALSO:

Buy products in season

Purchasing fruit and vegetables is less expensive when they are in season. That’s because the products don’t have to be kept in cold storage in the same way, which thanks to the current high energy prices incurs high costs that are then passed onto the customer. So going for produce that is naturally abundant at the time of year can really pay off. 

At the moment, vegetables such as kale, pumpkins, squashes, leaks and cabbages are in season, but you can refer to an online Saisonkalendar (season calendar), such as this one, to keep an eye on which fruits and veggies are in season at different times of the year.

Opt for cheaper products

Instead of entrecôte or fillet of beef, try a cervelat or minced meat. Vegetables are also cheaper than meat, so you could go for more ‘meat-free’ days.

You can also save by buying low-price or own-brand products (for example, Prix Garantie from Coop or M-Budget from Migros). For some items, the price differences between cheap products, own brands and brand-name products are small, but for others they are bigger.

READ MORE: Pasta up by 13 percent: How food and energy prices in Switzerland are rising

Many common products are now more expensive. Image by Alexa from Pixabay

Look out for discount stickers and special offers

Discount stickers are an easy way to save money when shopping for groceries in Switzerland. All the major retailers like Migros, Coop, Denner, Aldi Suisse and Lidl reduce the prices of many food products shortly before their expiry date. The discounts are marked on the products (usually with a red or orange sticker) and often range from 25 to 50 percent below the retail price.

When picking up discounts, you need to be flexible. You won’t know which items are discounted before you go on your shopping spree. Usually, the evening shortly before closing time, and weekends are the best time to go bargain hunting. And keep an eye out for special offers. Customers can find out about weekly promotions in the Migros magazine, in the Coop newspaper and in the brochures of Denner, Aldi and Lidl, as well as online. 

Collect loyalty points

Many large Swiss food retailers have customer loyalty programmes. The most popular are Cumulus (Migros, Voi, Migrolino) and Supercard (Coop).

The two programmes work similarly: show your customer card or the app at the checkout. As a rule, you get one point for every franc spent. With Migros, you receive vouchers every three months that you can use like cash in Migros shops. At Coop, the points are automatically credited to your points account. You can use these points to pay for certain products as part of promotions. You can also pay for your purchases with points at the Coop City department stores’ (without the food department).

100 points correspond to one franc with both Cumulus and Supercard. This means that you normally have to spend 100 francs to get the equivalent of one franc. Get collecting. 

READ MORE: Cost of living: How you can beat Switzerland’s inflation blues?

Pasta

Photo by Bozhin Karaivanov on Unsplash

Keep an eye on coupons

Collecting coupons is a bit like playing the lottery. Sometimes the coupons match the groceries on your shopping list, sometimes they don’t. With the right coupons, you can get discounts of up to 50 percent. Checking out customer magazines like the Coop paper and regional newspapers can be worthwhile. You can also find coupons in the apps of supermarkets like Migros, Coop and Lidl. And sometimes the coupons are even available in the shop itself. If you buy groceries online, you can often find coupons for online grocery shops and delivery services on numerous discount sites.

But don’t be blinded by the coupons: they are often branded products that are much more expensive than other items in the same shop, despite the discount.

Try shopping at farms

Wherever you live in Switzerland, chances are high that there is a farm fairly nearby (or it may make a nice day trip on the weekend). Some farmers sell their fresh produce directly from stalls, and the fruit and vegetables can be cheaper than in the supermarket.

Some farms in Switzerland are open around the clock. Money can usually be deposited in a cash box. Often payment via Twint is also possible. On schweizerbauer.ch you can find a list of Swiss farms by location. Although you can also buy regional products from farms on online platforms. However, the same savings are often not possible there as when you buy directly from a farm.

Fight food waste – and save money

Some organisations who want to reduce food waste sell almost expired food in Switzerland at a good price. Plus, retailers sometimes reject products simply because they are not in the desired shape, for example (such as crooked carrots).

The app Too Good To Go is well known. Customers use this smartphone app to buy a surprise package of leftover food. At the time specified in the app, you pick up the package. Various supermarkets, as well as restaurants, bakeries and takeaways are on board with the app. Food-waste shops like the Äss Bar shops, which sell baked goods from the day before, aim to reduce food waste rather than cost, but the prices are still far below the retail price.

If you are affected by poverty, you can also go shopping at Caritas grocery shops. Everyday products are usually available at much lower prices than in conventional supermarkets. The prerequisite is that you are on or below the poverty line, receiving economic social assistance or supplementary benefits to social security, or are in debt. There are also some local projects and food banks where people in poverty can buy cheap products – or even get them for free.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

COST OF LIVING

One in 10 struggle to make ends meet: Poverty in Switzerland revealed

Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world which contributes to overall high satisfaction, but many people still have financial worries.

One in 10 struggle to make ends meet: Poverty in Switzerland revealed

People in Switzerland have the highest level of life satisfaction in Europe, according to a study published his week by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

However, that doesn’t mean that everyone in the Alpine nation is satisfied with their quality of life. 

According to the FSO, who carried out the survey on income, poverty and living conditions in 2022, almost one in 10 people in Switzerland struggled to make ends meet financially, and nearly 5 percent of the population had to do without important goods, services and social activities due to financial reasons.

The poverty rate in Switzerland was measured as 8.2 percent. 

READ ALSO: The Swiss cantons with the highest (and lowest) incomes

How satisfied are people in Switzerland?

On a scale of 0 to 10, the mean score for satisfaction with current lifestyle in Switzerland was 8, compared to 7.9 in Austria, 7.2 in Italy, 7.0 in France and 6.5 in Germany. In Switzerland, life satisfaction has hardly changed since 2014 and increases with age, level of education and income.

The population is particularly satisfied in interpersonal areas such as living together, the working atmosphere and personal relationships. More than half of people aged 16 and over were very satisfied in these areas in 2022 (scores of 9 or 10). In contrast, only one in three people were very satisfied with their leisure time or personal financial situation.

A person works on a laptop.

People were generally happy with work in Switzerland. Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

The FSO measured the general standard of living on the basis of the median available disposable income, whereby the price level differences between the countries were corrected. In Switzerland, disposable income is 2.5 times as high as in Greece, 1.5 times as high as in Italy, 1.3 times as high as in France, 1.2 times as high as in Germany and 1.1 times as high as in Austria.

The FSO said: “Despite the high price level in Switzerland, the population’s standard of living is therefore higher than in neighbouring countries and the majority of EU countries.”

But there are stark differences between living conditions in Switzerland, a country of around 9 million people. 

In 2022, 9.9 percent of Swiss residents had difficulty making ends meet at the end of the month and 4.9 percent of the population were affected by material and social deprivation, according to the survey. This means that they had to do without important goods, services and social activities such as new clothes, regular leisure activities or meetings with friends for financial reasons, were unable to pay their bills on time or couldn’t pay for unexpected expenses.

As you would expect, those struggling to make ends meet have a significantly lower level of life satisfaction. In 2022, only one in nine of those facing financial issues were satisfied with their lives (10.9 percent vs. 37.9 percent of the total population). This group also stated that they felt discouraged or depressed most or all of the time (24.3 percent vs. 5.4 percent of the total population) and were less likely to be happy most or all of the time (37.1 percent vs. 76.6 percent of the total population).

How many people in Switzerland are in poverty?

In Switzerland, 8.2 percent of the population had low levels of income in 2022 – this corresponds to around 702,000 people. The poverty rate was therefore lower than in the previous year (8.7 percent), but the difference is not statistically significant, researchers said.

Furthermore, the price increases for electricity, heating costs and consumer goods since 2022 are not yet reflected in these figures. Although Switzerland has been shielded from severe inflation hikes seen elsewhere in Europe in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine, consumer prices have still gone up.

As in previous years, foreign nationals, people in single-parent households, people without further education and those in families or households where there are high levels of unemployment are frequently affected by income poverty. At 3.8 percent (144,000 people), the poverty rate among the working population was also slightly lower than in the previous year (4.2 percent), but again, researchers said that this development is not viewed as significant. 

In a previous study by the statistical office, the parts of Switzerland with the lowest incomes were found to be the cantons of Jura, Valais, and Ticino.

READ ALSO: Where are the poorest parts of Switzerland?

The poverty threshold comes from the guidelines of the Swiss Conference on Social Welfare (SKOS). In 2022 this amounted to an average of CHF 2,284 per month for an individual and CHF 4,010 per month for a family.

This income threshold is higher in Switzerland than elsewhere, but the cost of living is higher as well. 

SHOW COMMENTS