Sunday, April 27, 2008

Need some Marmite?


I never had Marmite as a child and it's not something I can honestly say I like. However, I know that there are many British expats out there who miss their Marmite and who will be delighted to find out that you can buy Marmite from Amazon! It's $44.40 - but don't have a heart attack yet - that's for a CASE of TWELVE 4.4 ounce jars and the shipping is free! That'll see you on for a while, right?

I'd never thought of Amazon as a grocery import store, but they have some good stuff! They sell PG Tips tea in bulk. 640 tea bags for $30, and again no shipping charges. They list 3 kinds of chocolate digestives - unfortunately all out of stock though :-( Probably a good thing, as you have to buy them in bulk too and I could do serious damage to 6 packages of chocolate digestives! They even sell custard creams - but it's a brand I've never heard of so I'm not going to risk it given that they come in a 24-pack! I think that's about 8 pounds of biscuits! I have to check the price of Pataks sauces at our supermarket tomorrow and see if $20 for 4 jars at Amazon is cheaper than I can buy them locally.

There's no easy way to find the import goods at Amazon. You just have to do a search in their grocery store for items you'd like. There are several "British import stores" online that carry a wider range of goods and are more easily searchable but I've never ordered anything from any of them. When I first arrived in the US 23 years ago it was not easy to find certain British foods - custard, digestive biscuits, Ribena . . . Nowadays, though, we have a small import section at our local supermarket and a very good international 'market' nearby where I can usually find most English things I'm craving. They're not always cheap, but usually much cheaper than buying them online! Finding reasonably priced imported foods at Amazon was quite a surprise.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

One jar of Marmite is more than a life-time supply. :-(

BTW - on the chocolate digestives? JUST SAY NO!

-DH

AliBlahBlah said...

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that I can buy hula hoops in bulk on Amazon(!)

I had actually heard of buying grocery stuff on Amazon because for a while there it was much cheaper to buy diapers online with free shipping than it was to buy them at Costco. I think every Mum in my 'Mom's Group' was buying diapers from Amazon - UPS must have wondered what the hell was going on!!

Expat mum said...

a CASE of Marmite? I love the stuff but even I can't imagine going through that much in the next decade. Having said that, my mum bought me the marmite recipe book (yes) for my birthday last year so perhaps i would.

Canoez said...

I do recall when Almost American and I had been dating for a few months we stopped in at a British foods store near where she lived at the time. She and I were the only customers in the store and there was one clerk.

While we were browsing, a Scottish woman and a young man came into the store. This woman started talking. Another woman answered her with a relatively heavy English accent - I hadn't seen anyone else come into the store.

It turned out that it was Almost American. When she usually spoke to others, her accent was decidedly "Mid-Atlantic" When she spoke to this other woman at the store, you would have sworn that someone had thrown a switch to change the accent!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I've managed to click a link at last! Marmite is something you can't find easily in France as very few French people have tasted it and even fewer actually like it!
(Still can't make anything work on your main page though)

Iota said...

That's a lot of Marmite!

Don't bother with the custard creams. They're really not very nice.

Almost American said...

Thanks Iota - I would have hated to order the custard creams only to find out they were nasty!

I think the only people who would buy that much Marmite would be reselling it.

Marmite Breath said...

I've got four jars in my pantry. If I ever run out, I'll die. I just got sent a jar of it with champagne in it too!

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