IBS International Business School

Guideline of grocery shopping for foreign students

Studying in a foreign country naturally implies more difficulties for students. It’s no surprise that questions related to language barrier appear in every-day life. Among all, one of the most common things that have to be done is going shopping. Though it doesn’t seem to be such a big deal, going shopping can bring along several matters that are to be solved, such as finding the necessary goods and benefitting from proper prices in the shop you go to. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to inform IBS students and give them guidance about optimal places for shopping, based on their needs and preferences, as well as to help students to get accustomed to Hungarian language, by proposing them the translation of most common products and ingredients related to them, along with some tips that may appear very advisable.

Based on the results of a survey we’ve conducted, IBS students usually go shopping to CBA, ABC, Tesco, SPAR and Match. By choosing these shops, they are guided by several reasons, among which we can enumerate the shop’s location, goods pricing, quality of the products and service. Given the information from the survey, we’ve selected 20 most common products our students buy for daily consumption and looked at their prices in the mentioned above shops on the market.

The table above shows the 20 different products, their best prices and the shops where they are available. As you can see, most of the products’ best prices are available in CBA and SPAR. However, from personal experience and within the survey we’ve conducted on students, Spar has better quality of food than CBA. Also, you could find almost all the products we’ve mentioned in the table in ABC market, but the prices of the products are doubled there. The reason is that ABC is opened for 24 hours, which is different from the rest of the markets in Budapest.

Shopping TIP: Better prices of Pasta may be found in the discount market next to Mammut, where pasta is of a very high quality. The prices range between 600 and 700 ft/Kilo.

According to the survey we’ve conducted on IBS students, we have realized that most of the students have problems with purchasing their products, due to the language barrier they face while shopping. Therefore, we decided to make up a table, which contains some of the products students need, is presented, with their ingredients and nutrition facts translated in English.

Alacsony zsírtartalmú- low fat; zsíros – full fat; teljes tej- whole milk yogurt;JuicesGyümölcslevek

Frissen facsart- freshly squeezed; cukormentes- sugar free;BreadKenyér

Pirítós- toast;Butter/margarineVaj/ margarin

Here are some tips and facts about the products mentioned in the table above:

Yogurts

There are a lot of yogurts on the market, among which, fruit-flavoured yogurts, are the most popular. Here are presented 3 best yogurts.

Milli “fruity hug”- with cherry pieces: pasteurized, homogenised milk, 18% fruit content (this 18% is a made-up fruit content, including the preserving additives and aromas) sugar, milk powder, modified flavouring.Fat rate: 2.3%

Zott-Jogo Bella-Fruit yogurt:  blueberry 9%, 3.5% milk, modified blueberry content (blueberry, sugar, glucose, glucose syrup, fructose, blueberry concentrate aroma) sugar, milk protein. Fat rate: 2.6 %

Sole- yogurt with strawberry pieces: pasteurized milk, modified strawberry content 15% (sugar, fruit aroma, colour modifier), sugar. Fat rate: 2.7%

As it turns out from the above, among the 3 most popular brands, the Jogo Bella is the best in quality. On the other hand, it is one of the most expensive brands. However, all the 3 types of yoghurts can be consumed daily, because none of them actually contains harmful ingredients.

Nature yogurts:

The best choice for yoghurts is SPAR nature yogurt, for it is the cheapest and has an originally classic flavour.

If you want to buy exclusively healthy yogurts, then DANONE Activia is the best choice. However, it is a bit more expensive.

Juices

When we are heading to juices in Hungary, one of the biggest issues is which brand to choose among the huge variety. Here, are only 100% natural juices are taken into consideration, because their ingredients are healthier and more demanded.

Hohes C-Orange: orange juice, C-vitamin, no additional sugar.

Hohes C-Multivitamin: mixed fruit juice, E-vitamin, ß-karyotin, B6 B2 B1 B12 vitamins, no additional sugar.

While considering which Juice to buy, one should remember that Hohes-C is the best choice. However, it is not the cheapest! But if you want to find a 100% fruit juice, there is nothing better than Hohes-C.

Toast

The most expensive bread (600-700 Ft / half kilo)

Ingredients: water, wheat flour, whole flour, rye flour, regenerative, salt.

Little less expensive bread (400 Ft/ half kilo)

This bread is also worth buying. However, it contains a little more preservative contents.

Toast bread: wheat flour, water, rye flour, regenerative, salt, and ADDITIONAL flours, E-content, more preservatives.

The most expensive bread is the best one, but if you do not want it, the solution is to try buying bread at medium price, but not the toast one. Bread can be found at around 200 Ft/ kilo price, which is a good alternative.

We hope that the readers find this article very useful for living in Budapest, and will be aware of the advice and information received from now on.

by Radwa Al-Maghrabi, Maria Bîrsan, Donat Nemeth, Ecaterina Zencenco, Herman Troye, Andras Petrovci, Bence Bodnar