Foreigners tend to have very strong views about Dutch food shops and supermarkets. Here’s some of the key things you need to know before you venture into the hallowed space of an Albert Heijn or join the TikTok queue at the bakery which someone else says have the best breakfast croisssants.

Prices

The Dutch love bargains so in supermarkets you can expect to find a plentiful supply of special offers. These usually include one “healthy” option so politicians can’t get too angry about snack food discounts and cheap beer.

Live in a border area and you can nip over to Germany and Belgium if you are really looking for a bargain. Cola in Germany is half the price it is here which is why you will see so many cars with Dutch number plates in a German shopping centre car park. The fact they’ve spent an hour driving there and a couple of litres of petrol is by the by.

Colours

Colours are crucial, especially when it comes to dairy products.  Blue is for milk (and the lighter the blue, the lower the fat), red is for karnemelk (butter milk), green is for yoghurt and yellow is for vla. This is possibly the single most important thing you need to know about food shopping in the Netherlands.

Apps and bonus cards

Install the app of your favourite stores, take out their discount card, and you will find yourself inundated with special offers relating to the shopping you did last week and a scary reminder of the number of tubs of ice cream you bought. However, apps and bonus cards do allow you to save up virtual zegels (stamps) to get the all important freebies and even more special offers.

Zegels

Maybe you have noticed that all your friends have the same ovenware? That’s down to Albert Heijn freebies. Over the space of the year you will be able to collect glasses, knives, football stickers, something involving cute animals and trips to the Efteling. We know people who have equipped their entire kitchen using supermarket spaaracties – and also have enough glasses to host a part for 100 people.

The check out

If you do get to use a traditional check out, don’t forget to put the little plastic divider on the conveyor belt when you have finished putting all shopping out, so the check out girl knows when she has reached the end of your shopping. If you don’t, the person behind you will tut tut and give you that look, as they do it themselves.

This assumes, of course, that the supermarket you have chosen still has a till. Self scan is all the rage. This means means supermarkets can employ fewer people and you do part of their job for them.

They do, however, have to pay someone to stand by and help everyone who can’t quite get the self scan right and to check they are not attempting to steal a packet of dishwasher tablets – which are also much cheaper in Germany.

How to pay

Most Dutch supermarkets do not take credit cards so bring your pin card or pay with cash. And an increasing number of them don’t take cash at all the tills either. No cash or pin card? Check out grocery delivery Amsterdam. Thuisbezorgd, for example, takes cash, pin, iDEAL, credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Takeaway Pay.

Opening hours

If you live in a small town, you may find that grocery stores aren’t open much outside office hours. It is up to local councils to decide if shops can open outside the designated times (6 am to 10 pm) and on Sundays – which is a particular issue in the Bible Belt.

In the cities, traditional avondwinkels or night stores where the owner will charge you double for milk are fast disappearing thanks to the supermarkets which have decided to stay open until 10 pm after all.

Can’t be bothered to get off the sofa anyway? Go for food delivery Amsterdam and have all you need delivered directly to your door. There is no danger you will end up with karnemelk in your coffee, you can pay how you like and you don’t have to fight with a self-scan machine. What more do you need?