Guatemala City - Post Report Question and Answers
How would you describe the availability and cost of groceries and household supplies relative to your home country?
You can get most things here. Pricesmart (related to Costco) is here and a good option. There are good grocery stores and lots of specialty stores. You can find just about anything here (except brown sugar). - Mar 2023
All kinds of groceries are widely available. Some imported items will disappear from shelves for weeks or months at a time. For me, those items have included lemons, fresh orange juice, and canned tomatoes. The main grocery store chain is La Torre. It is safe, clean, and huge just like an American supermarket. You can find smaller online purveyors that specialize in organic items or farms that sell directly through WhatsApp. I have been really happy with Cinco Azul, for example, and Caoba Farms (located outside Antigua) delivers orders to Guatemala City once per week. People warned me that grocery store prices can be high. In my experience, it's not at all true, but I'm vegetarian. If you buy meat, you may want to find a butcher for good quality products, as grocery stores will sell subpar stuff. For fish, which my partner eats, frozen options are ample and are quite good. Vegan items are available but may disappear from shelves on occasion. A shop called El Mercadito 14 (attached to LAVKA vegan restaurant) sells some vegan burgers and sausages. For Asian items, particularly Korean, there are several locations of a fantastic store called Happy Mart and a bigger shop called Rodeo. - Oct 2022
If you're buying them from a regular supermarket or the mall, expect for them to cost more on average than in the US. There's a reason we have COLA in Guatemala. Services are cheaper, but products are more expensive. Definitely try not to buy any electronics or toys here - for example, the LEGO store at Oakland Mall is twice as expensive as in the US. The main grocery store is La Torre, and it is very comparable to Giant or Safeway. You can find most things there, although I personally feel that the quality and variety of the fruit available at regular grocery stores here is subpar. Berries are quite pricey, not very good, and go rotten quickly. You can find Fuji and Gala apples and occasionally Pink Lady, but they're not great and good luck trying to find any other variety of apple. The variety and quality of vegetables is much better, although still more limited than in the US. I've never found a head of lettuce in a grocery store here - it's all bagged leaves. If you take advantage of the dry season, however, you can grow great veggies in your yard/balcony with all the bright sun! Everything in our garden drowned during the rainy season, though. There are multiple branches of the Costco-equivalent PriceSmart here and they generally have produce that's a bit better quality, but even more limited in variety. They have more US products that you can stock up on there and even sometimes Pillsbury crescent rolls, if that's something that gets you excited! - Oct 2022
I was able to find everything I ever need for meals. The cost of groceries at Walmart is comparable to the U.S. in places like Texas or North Carolina. If you shop at La Torre (another grocery store here) you can compare those prices to H-E-B in Texas a bit more pricey than Walmart. La Torre is convenient because it's located within walking distance of the housing as opposed to Walmart that is a 15 minute drive. You can always find street vendors selling fruits for very cheap. I usually get my apples/bananas/and limes from them. A bag of 30 limes is less than $1 and a pack of 10 bananas is the same. - Jul 2021
The convenient grocery stores are more expensive, but we can get most everything we like, though some American products are more expensive. We use Amazon for the few items we can't find or that cost too much locally (a specific kind of cereal, Lara bars, chocolate sprinkles, baby food, a preferred kind of cleaner, etc.). We are big bakers and adventurous cooks, and we can find 90% of the obscure ingredients we might need. - Jan 2020
Nearly every grocery product imaginable is available here. Groceries are more a bit expensive than I would have expected, but not problematically so. A number of different large grocery store chains exist, as does a warehouse club store equivalent to BJs/Sam's Club/Costco in the US. We get a huge community share agriculture (CSA) box of vegetables delivered to our home every other week for about $20. Fresh seafood delivery is available as well. - Mar 2019
Practically everything available here, but of course Amazon is rich for a reason. Supermarket chains and shopping malls are mostly like US in quality - slightly higher pricing though (in Guatemala City, not rural). Walmart and big box shopping (Pricesmart, similar to Costco) available here. Toy stores, butchers, etc... - Feb 2019
Most things are available. Fruit and vegetables are typically cheaper than in the U.S., while most other things are slightly more expensive. There are some small, boutique stores when you can find unexpected luxuries (including a place in Antigua that carries a random assortment of Trader Joe's branded items) but at a regular grocery store it can be hard to find baking soda, certain spices, bread crumbs, bourbon, ginger, crisco, it just depends on the season and what order the store happens to have recently received. If you want to buy the exact same products you used at home it will definitely cost you more, but you can make up for it with the cheap pineapples, avocados, eight varieties of mangos, blackberries... - Jun 2015
Groceries (including household supplies) for our 4 person family are about US$300 per week. PriceSmart is the local version of Costco, and Pais is run by Wal-Mart so there are lots of American products available here. - Apr 2014
Supermarkets are comfortable, well stocked and offer prices comparable to those one can find in the U.S. PriceSmart (a local version of Wal-Mart), a membership-based wholesale store, is the best option for those who can buy stuff in bulk. - Jan 2014
Expect to pay pretty much US prices. One can save some money by going to the Guatemalan version of Costco/Sam's Club. - Nov 2011
It is easy to find most US groceries and household supplies except organic foods. Those can be found at specialty shops such as Gourmet Center, Organica, and Delica. Prices might be a little higher for imported things. - May 2010
I think it's about the same as in the U.S., although some imported stuff might be more expensive. - Mar 2008
