Supermarket evaluation and rating in France

Food in France is very "local". As said before you will not find a centralized listing of what is on offer and where. You need to ask the locals, the owners of your vacation house, the tourist office where you can shop and for what. There are several large supermarkets where I stay in France and there is very little between them, the one I prefer has a great butcher counter but that's due to the staff, and might not be the same in other areas. If you are set on organic foods then you should ask for health shops or "vitamin" shops that usually sell a good range of veggies and fruits but it's not cheap. I don't find that supermarkets carry a lot of organic produce. When looking at markets, I have learned to distinguish between those who sell fresh produce but from all over to those whose focus is very local from small farmers using less intensive methods. Again some research on a local level is necessary. I hope this helps.

You have several ways to buy food in France : - go for small stores like butcher and baker. Those usually offer the best quality but the price could be expensive. - go to the supermarket. You have small, medium and hypermarket. The bigger the supermarket is, the more choice you'll have. Supermarket offer a selection of local products and national brand products. Pricing is usually the cheapest and quality can vary. You'll also find organic (bio) shopd but price are really expensive. - go to the fresh market that you'll find twice a week in most of the towns. You'll find there freshest products usually coming directly from the farm.

Few advices to eat good food : - buy local products rather than products coming from the other side of the earth. You'll find a lot of fruits coming from a lot of foreign countries. They have traveled a lot so I let it to you to guess what they are made of to be able to absorb the travel delay... - ask the locals. People will be delighted to give you directions to the best shop. - ask the store staff, they will also give you ideas to discover seasonnal good products. - check the shops where is a queue up to the exit, this is usually a good sign. - check for awards. Best shops received awards and are usually very proud to highlight those. Shops without awards aren't necessary bad but shops that received awards are definitely good.

You'll find some reviews on Google local business listing and also the pages jaunes but usually not a lot. So rather ask locals. You will see them walking with their little caddy in the street in the morning.