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American isle in a supermarket was removed and was instead replaced by Turkish products
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this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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What food from the USA would anyone in Europe actually want? Genuine question.
Oreos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMkYw4dp_NI&t=4
We have Domino cookies from Finland that are better anyways
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_%28cookie%29?wprov=sfla1
Or Ringo biscuits in Italy. Muuuuch better.
Thats one way to describe them
There's a Turkish alternative that actually tastes better. I keep forgetting the brand name though.
Yeah, no. Those things are really an acquired taste.
I'm imagining peanut butter, BBQ sauce, pumpkin pie filling, and maybe a few breakfast foods like cream of wheat. Not all of our foods are terrible nightmares, they're just either available in different aisles or not super popular to justify being everywhere.
The intersection of "American", "novelty" and "popular enough to import but not enough to fully stock" is probably mostly candy, pop tarts and Lucky charms.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/us-trade-war-german-peanut-butter-lovers-feel-crunch-q55bs3r8t
The last time trump was around and pulled this type of shit peanut butter was one of the things people had issues with, since the US produces a lot of peanuts and peanut butter.
I'm German and I suspect it's a bit cringier than that. Out of the products you listed peanut butter is the only one that's available virtually everywhere. You can get all of the other stuff as well but mostly online or at dedicated candy shops. The only other item I can think of is Jack Daniel's and probably some other spirits. So what was sold in the US section? The answer is probably German made stuff that's stereotypically American. This may include spray cheese, creatively flavored bbq sauces, other condiments like relish, brioche burger and hot dog buns, cookies, brownies, muffins, donuts and my favorite because you guys don't even eat that: actual plastic buckets filled with sweet popcorn.
Heh, fair enough. I took a look at some pictures of US grocery sections at European stores and applied the huristic of:
Based on that metric, I concluded there was a contingent of Europeans who viewed American peanut butter, BBQ sauce and hot porridge as superior enough to justify spending extra on. That spray cheese was correctly regarded as a disgusting novelty, and that pop tarts, lucky charms and marshmallow fluff are noveltys that are "fine".
Wouldn't have expected you to put relish there though! I kinda figured that was one everyone had that they tweaked a little for regional taste, like mustard.
Besides the stuff people already listed, I know sections like this here in Germany, and they often (not always) just have "American style" products - basically some weird hybrids of what a European imagines America to be like, but for European palates. So I bet - unless this was a section with true import stuff - any American would be confused why they never heard of any of these products.
Lucky Charms and Nerds. I think it’s mostly for Americans in Europe actually. It’s all quite expensive and I’ve never seen anyone buy it.
Decent crunchy PB.
Over the last few years some Australian and New Zealand brands have emerged which are just fucking magnificent.
this stuff is fucking amazing. Just nuts and salt but jesus tap dancing christ those nuts.
Aldi (Nord) here in Europe has some amazing ones.
American living in Portugal here. The only things from home I buy with any regularity are peanut butter (the crunchy kind) and bourbon. Pretty much everything else has an EU-made equivalent with way less scary sounding chemicals on the ingredient list.
*migrant
Yes, basically
i never tried almond, or cashew butter, theres also powdered peanut butter these are usually sold at more bougie stores though. ive seen sunflower and macademia butter too.
We have oreos here in Australia, but they're probably manufactured somewhere in Asia by am American conglomerate in the same way the rest of our confectionery is.