Buying food in Cyprus

Supermarkets in Cyprus

Like most European countries, Cyprus has supermarkets in each of the cities.  Most of them have at least two floors, with household goods, electrical items and (sometimes) clothes being sold upstairs, while the main grocery/produce shop is on the ground floor.  

Supermarkets are hygienic, convenient, and provide a wide range of foods including those imported from the UK and elsewhere.  The setup is familiar to people from Western countries: you take a wire trolley (cart), move up and down the aisles putting items in, then queue at the checkouts, where you can pay by credit or debit card, cheque, or with cash.  Most of them offer some kind of loyalty card that offers you discounts if you shop frequently and accumulate points.  Most of them have special offers each week, too, prominently displayed outside.

Supermarkets are usually open from about 7.30am until 7.30pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.   On Wednesdays they close around 3.00pm, and on Sundays they are closed all day.  Saturdays used to have early closing, but recently supermarkets have stayed open longer on Saturdays, sometimes as late as 7.00pm.   During December, most supermarkets extend their hours, even opening on Sundays in the run-up to Christmas.   While many shops observe a siesta period from 1pm-4pm from June to August, most of the supermarkets stay open these days, since they have full air conditioning.   Consult the sites below for exact details of opening hours.  

The main supermarkets in Cyprus are:

Orphanides - this has twelve branches around the island, in all the main towns, and a couple of smaller supermarkets recently established.  Their web-site is not very well maintained, but their special offers are generally good, and they have a wide selection of clothes and household goods as well as groceries.  Orphanides tends to be popular with the Cypriots, and provides reasonable value.  

Carrefour - this used to be known as Chris Cash and Carry, but was taken over by the European supermarket chain in 2005.   It has four hypermarkets and five supermarkets, in Larnaka, Limassol, Paphos and Paralimni.   It tends to sell a lot of pre-processed and frozen food imported from abroad, and is popular with retired Brits and those in the army.  

Metro - this is our favourite supermarket;  smaller than most, but with plenty of choice and a friendlier atmosphere than the large supermarkets.   It has three branches in Nicosia, and one in Larnaka.  Their meat and delicatessen counter tend to be excellent, and while their range of imported products isn't quite as wide as that in Carrefour, there is still plenty of choice.  They also feature plenty of produce grown or made in Cyprus.  

AlphaMega - this used to be called Charalambides, and is a hypermarket rather than a supermarket .  So far there are only two branches, in Nicosia, selling a wide variety of goods.  

Other places to buy food in Cyprus

In addition to these large stores, there are several smaller supermarkets - for instance, Sarris in Larnaka is popular with Cypriots, and provides some excellent value household goods.   There are also a wide number of smaller discount grocery stores in each of the towns, and there are still smaller general grocery shops in residential areas, often selling postcards and magazines as well as basic foods, though their prices are not so good as the main supermarkets.  

Two further important types of shop are the bakeries and the froutarias (greengrocers).    Freshly baked bread is an important part of the Cypriot lifestyle, and there are excellent bakeries in most streets, often opening from 7am until 9pm or later, with a few of them open for 24 hours.  As well as several types of bread, pittas, rolls and cakes, bakeries typically have a refrigerated section selling milk, cheese, ham and soft drinks, although these items tend to be rather over-priced.   Still, if you have unexpected guests late at night, the bakeries are very convenient.

Froutarias are almost as prolific as bakeries, and also tend to sell refrigerated produce in addition to their wide range of fresh fruit and vegetables.  Sometimes they sell other basic canned and packaged goods too.   It's worth trying out several fruit shops, since prices vary, as does quality.  Many of them have special offers of the previous days' produce in an outer section of the shop;  these tend to be excellent value so it's worth visiting your froutaria regularly, and fairly early.  

Is food expensive in Cyprus?

People often ask if it's expensive to buy food in Cyprus.   Obviously, one person's idea of good value differs from another, depending on their expectations and background.  Someone from an Asian or African country would probably find food very expensive in Cyprus, whereas someone from a Western European country would find it quite good value.  People from the USA used to find it reasonably priced, but with the dollar having fallen significantly against European currencies, this is no longer the case. 

It also depends considerably on what kinds of food you want to buy.  If you're happy to shop around, to buy local seasonal produce, to use discount stores where possible, to cook everything from scratch and to take advantage of special offers, then you will find shopping much less expensive than people who buy imported ready-made goods, fruit and vegetables out of season, and only ever go to one supermarket.    In 2007 we find that around 60-80 Cyprus pounds per week (around $120-$180 US) is more than sufficient to buy food and other groceries for three adults (and four cats), and do a fair amount of entertaining.    But then we don't buy any fizzy drinks, sweetened cereals or crisps, we buy most of our fruit and vegetables from a local fruitaria, and we make our own bread and ice cream.   Some people spend considerably more than that.  

If you want to know about eating out in Cyprus, rather than buying food to cook, the page on Restaurants in Larnaka may be of use.