My New Thing with the Independent Grocers of Australia

Unless you're the seriously hardcore type of minority who shops only at farmers' markets and organic whole food shops, you probably shop at a supermarket. Yes? If so, then you know what I'm talking about. So, anyway, this is why supermarkets are your biggest window of insight into a suburb. (So, if you're a prospective home-buyer, you must visit the local supermarket when driving through the prospective suburb to see whether you really could live there.) These days, I keep coming up with a reason to pop into an IGA while I've been out, just so I can snoop about in there. IGA stores are more exciting than other supermarkets because individual stores have the freedom to stock what they want for their niche market.

IGA is a good place to buy your hors d'oeuvres in Canberra, the Nations's Capital. Having friends over for a movie? Quickly dash into the Deakin IGA to pick up a bag of Doritos and the gourmet salsa conveniently placed adjacently your chips. The Ainslie IGA is a favourite of mine. Do not let the humble facade of the suburb deceive you; their bread basket (the IGA) is filled with expensive pates, cheeses and small plastic tubs of hummus priced well above the ten dollar mark. The home-printed label on the container will tell you it has been made by someone whose name translates into English as 'Grandmother', deeming it an ethical buy. The sheer scale of the Ainslie IGA tells you it is not just a convenience store for Ainslie inhabitants, maybe meaning they find other supermarkets to be too mainstream, an unethical choice and lacking in local community feel. Nothing must comfort alternative people more than to find dirt on their radishes. The length of this paragraph is embarassing me. But anyway, this is the haven for buying Italian pasta flour, gluten-free kids' snacks, Asian food for people with dietary intolerances, vegetarian chilled foods and seeds for the garden, all in one go.

Despite all of that about the alternativeness of the Ainslie IGA, first prize in interior design must go to the Kingston IGA, which is another of my favourites. It's double the size that one initially thinks and it's the most dilapidated supermarket around! As a final sentence to this blog post, I've been told by friends that the once saw a man inside the Curtin IGA wearing nothing but a towel.