Which Grocery Stores To Patronize?

I think I have the Portland grocery store market figured out now. It is very much compatible with the low passion for food in this area, and offers fewer options than does New Orleans. This metro area is primarily a national chain grocery store market. it has few independent grocery stores and none I have found of any size. New Orleans, with its addiction to good food has many local independent groceries that carry specialized local products, often made in store.

But Portland offers more the national chain products, accounting for the lower quality if seafood and meat sold here. For some reason, local fresh meat and seafood offers take a big back seat to cheap but lower quality foreign and national meat and seafood. it amazes me that some of the excellent local food products are exported from Portland and not sold her in order to sell cheaper, lower quality goods to the natives. But, given their indifference to superior taste, Oregonians favor low price over quality.

My strategy here is to visit different stores for the best products offered. It means driving more than I did in New Orleans to find what I want, but most things I want can be found in at least passable quality and at reasonable prices. Customers here say they choose stores based on how coupon friendly they are or what loss leaders stores have on a given week. I am less interested in that than in finding something that I can cook that will taste good. Already, I have had to severely limit some seafood and meat options because the grade of product sold is too low, the price is too high, or because it is frozen (They love frozen raw seafood products here) rather than fresh.

The fruits and veggies here are better than in New Orleans, but that is because this is a lush agricultural region than makes buying local easy and affordable for the grocery stores. All of this may be recession influenced too. But much poor New Orleans offers the grocery shopping much better quality and price than found here in Portland. My impression is that people cook at home much more often in New Orleans, is the consumer there is better educated as to the quality of ingredients sold in grocery stores. That's why New Orleans has specailty food stores that Portland doesn't. It's sometimes hard for me to believe how low the quality of seafood is here, gven that water surrounds Portland and the Pacific Ocean itself is just an hour to the west.

Anyway, I am curious about your own grocery preferences. Are you a selective shopper or do you patronize only one or two stores? What about a store makes it appealing to you? Is it price, the location of the store, the local products sold, that it has higher quality products?