Supermarket Chains in Buenos Aires
Carrefour (http://www.carrefour.com.ar/) can be found in many barrios in the city. At the larger stores, you can do anything from buying groceries, to refilling prescriptions, to purchasing eye glasses, and there are smaller versions scattered throughout the city that still carry the best variety of groceries and pre-packaged meats. One thing that can be frustrating in Argentina is buying meat, because for the most part, you have to direct the butcher as to the type of cut that you want. So the luxury of the beef being ground, separated, and packed into one kilo size, or chicken breasts being separated from the whole chicken, is something that many expats greatly appreciate. The prices at Carrefour are competitive, as compared to some of the smaller supermercados, such as Disco (see below), but you’ll frequently have to go a bit more out of your way to find one. As with all the major chains in the city, Carrefour offers home delivery, or ‘envios a domicilio,’ at no extra charge (be sure to tip your delivery man).
Jumbo (http://www.jumbo.com.ar/) has an extensive selection of food, but fewer locations — the best one is located off of Avenida Bullrich in Palermo. (The web site lists which buses will take you to their stores — a very useful online tool.) Jumbo’s international offerings include peanut butter, soy sauce, rice noodles, gluten-free crackers, French and Spanish wines (a rarity in this malbec-soaked country), as well as a wide selection of meats and fish. It is very difficult to find fresh fish and seafood, and Jumbo does a good job of keeping their fish market stocked.
Coto (http://www.coto.com.ar/) is another large chain with stores in every barrio. Prices are on par with Carrefour’s, sometimes less, but the variety of groceries is limited and imports are hard to find. Most stores offer ready-made versions of local staples, such as milanesas and pastas, as well as other pre-cut meats. The enormous two-story location on Agüero (across from the Abasto shopping center) contains large clothing and electronics sections as well.
Disco (http://www.disco.com.ar/) can be found in almost every neighborhood in the center, as well shopping centers out in the province. You can sign up on their web site, which allows you shop online, and have the groceries delivered directly to you, without having to go into the store at all. This is a great option for busy people, but remember that the delivery times tend to be quite fluid and you may have to block out an hour or more to stay at home waiting. Discos tend to be a bit more expensive than Jumbo and Carrefour, and noticeably more expensive than the small corner mercados. However, they have a good selection of pre-packaged meats, deli meats and cheese (you can find brie and muenster at most of them), microwave popcorn, and a better selection of coffee (Illy and Segafredo), as well as some basic kitchen supplies like mugs and potato peelers.
Super Eki is a small, standard Argentine supermarket that offers discounts to frequent shoppers. In a nod to the environment, Eki charges customers for plastic bags, promoting instead the purchase of a reusable cloth bag that includes the membership tag for discounts.
