UNowadays nobody has to starve or die of thirst on the way. This is also ensured by the food supermarkets, which satisfy the need for a quick meal in between with freshly squeezed, sliced and sandwiched products. The convenience offerings that represent this trend are getting bigger and better. And only the older customers are likely to remember that in the past, you used to butter sandwiches for the day at home and cut apples into wedges.
The retail chain Tegut from Fulda is also focusing on quick shopping and snacks during breaks with its new “Quartier” concept. One such branch was opened at Frankfurt Airport at the end of January, and there has recently been another store in the Winx high-rise office building, which is on a busy corner near the Untermainbrücke.
Employees who work here will find plenty of fresh food for their break in the long, neatly arranged grocery store, starting with freshly squeezed orange juice (1.99 euros for 0.25 liters), grated carrot, beetroot and horseradish salad (3 .29 euros) to avocado cream, Vitello Tonnato to a chickpea humus with sesame oil and seeds (1.79 euros for 200 grams). This outlines only a small part of the many snacks and sandwiches, some of which are filled on the spot.
There is a large selection of snacks
Small lunch dishes – to take away or to eat immediately – are sold at the warm counter. When we visited, they had tortelloni stuffed with ricotta and spinach in a creamy cheese sauce, complete with braised cherry tomatoes, eggplant and carrots. The portion – billed by weight – was really filling for 3 euros and one cent. It also tasted good. Soups and pizzas sold in the market can be warmed up in a microwave by customers in the shop.
In principle, the “Quartier” is a small full-range store where you can do your most important shopping, although there is less choice than in a conventional supermarket. Customers will find fresh fruit and vegetables as well as chives and parsley, bread and rolls, noodles and pasta sauces, cheese and sausage (packaged, often vegan), muesli, yoghurt, dishwasher tabs, toothpaste and toilet paper. There is a large selection of snacks. The prices are on the usual Tegut level.
Highly recommended is the self-service coffee bar, where you can get the smallest portion of organic coffee for 1 euro. Add a quark ball (almost 50 cents) from the baked goods shelf across the street – for 5 euros you have an almost perfect lunch break. Almost perfect because we end up throwing in the trash a tortelloni bowl with a plastic lid, a plastic knife and fork, and a cardboard coffee mug. Don’t fool yourself, convenience is “quick and dirty”. To calm our guilty conscience, we’ll bring a reusable cup next time. Then the coffee costs 10 cents less.
Quarter, Tegut market, Neue Mainzer Strasse 6-10, Frankfurt; Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; www.tegut.com