Your unofficial guide to shopping at supermarkets in Dubai

Picture for illustrative purposes

1) Read the flyers you get with your newspaper
Shopping for ingredients is best timed around the days of the week when supermarkets have discounts. The intense competition in the supermarket and hypermarket business ensures that you have plenty of choice when it comes to where and what to buy. You get the freshest produce as the produce on offer will be flying of the shelves before you can say "Express Counter." Of course, aren't discounts usually on products that are near their expiration date? Well, not all the time. But make it a point to check the expiration before billing or at least before you head home.
2) All supermarket chains don't stock all products
If you can't find the brand of jam you used to eat five years ago, maybe you should go back to the supermarket chain where you used to buy it. You can moan and complain that the jam, chocolate bars and chewing gum brands that you ate circa 1992 are no longer available in Dubai. Well, it could be that you're just at the wrong supermarket. If you want to be doubly sure call up the company that manufactures the product and ask them where in the UAE you can buy it.
3) The food you're buying is getting healthier.
The decision to choose sugar coated cereal or plain cereal is an important choice. And this doesn't come from the school of thought that sugar is evil. With the move to make biscuits healthier, biscuit lovers have noticed that the healthy biscuits crumble faster. Imagine eating the same brand of biscuits for a good four decades and finding that they don't make them the way they used to. The end of an era, people would say. But this could do your health a world of good.
4) Prices will rise
Over the last twenty years, the price of chocolate bars has almost doubled. There is talk of a worldwide chocolate shortage. The price of certain candies has increased one hundred percent. Some of us are shocked and shamed to find that a part of our childhood is ridiculously overpriced. But I must confess if the price of everything has gone up, there have to be at least seven good reasons for the upward revision.
5) If you aren't quick, the discounted food will sell out
You aren't the only one who's reading about the discounts. Most people, it doesn't matter if they're wealthy or not, buy food at discounted rates. If you reach late, you'll find that the supply has run out. So time your shopping, if you can, before you head to work. There's no shame in getting the best deals. Money can't be earned easily so it will have to spent carefully.