Anyone notice their favs disappearing from Villa Markets?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Well mate dont know what half that stuff you refer to is,and as for importing cheese from California-------That had me curled up on the floor.Ever heard of New Zsaland. Anyway all joking apart most Farang (me included) when they come here to stay find that their diet does change and you start to enjoy all sorts of stuff that you used to turn your nose up at the beginning..As they say "try it you'll like it"--------- Dougal the Kiwi

Well, I do vaguely, very vaguely, recall hearing about some distant place filled with Kiwis... Can't say much more than that though....

But, if you do have a recommendation for some Kiwi cheese that Villa stocks, I'd be willing to give it a try... My preference is cheddar. Heck, I even had a Kiwi fruit for lunch the other day... quite good!!!

PS - I wasn't buying the California cheddar from Villa because it was from California... I was buying it because a) it was good, and b] it was the best priced sliced real cheddar they had in stock. If I wanted to pay a fortune for cheese, I'd buy their Tillamook cheddar from (I believe) Oregon, which happens to be another place in the old USA.

Edited April 22, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Yes, I have noticed that they do not stock the arrowmills 'gluten free steel cut oats' anymore. I asked manager about this many times but of course they do not know. TIT

I was by the Villa Suk 11 store in BKK the other day, and was looking in baking/cereals section.

I was surprised that they have quite a huge selection of various gluten free products on the shelves there right now -- though I can't speak to your steel cut oats. Probably the best I've ever seen from them.

I was surprised because, at a time when they're totally out of stock of so many other things, their gluten free stock looks very healthy.

Lots of baking mixes, pancake mixes, various other things. They're even stocking a very low priced local brand of white rice flour, something I'd always thought the stores here should have given this is Thailand, but rarely could find.

Edited April 22, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I did find items on Soi 33/1 The Original Villa that I have not found in the Pattaya store !

I also wrote a letter to them suggesting to add a Sugar Free Products section , which they use to carry a few more Sugar Free products then you can find now. It seems all stores are not the same , I was in my Wheelchair which in Phuket and Pattaya is pretty accessible in most aisles , but in Villa 33/1 which I had been a customer at since 1988,

its really still a case of I hope nobody's in the next aisles I'm in. I also found the Lady on 33/1 knew her cheese but most others staff tried harder then Phuket or Pattaya staff have no idea. Actually , some Non- Thai Ladies were very helpful , helping me find some items , you could tell they were regular shoppers there !

They really need to import Splenda in the big bags like friends bring me , 2 of those ladies said that too , in our brief chat ! Diabetes isn't just for us Non- Thai people anymore. Doctors in hospitals have told me its very prevalent amongst the Thai populace these days ! There are many companies that they carry their products in Sugared contents , that also make Sugar Free Variations , so its not like they have to search very far Plus , Oreo's if they make them mhere could offer a SF version , unless they fear the

SUGAR Monopolies !

Thanks for the post...

1. I'm surprised you could even get into the Soi 33 store in a wheelchair... I'm a walking guy (tall and big), but even I have problems navigating their very narrow aisles there.... It's an old store with an old design... no way they could build one like that these days...

2. Yes, diabetes is a big problem among Thais as is high blood pressure... But a lot of the time, it seems that it isn't diagnosed or treated...

[xylophone]

Well mate dont know what half that stuff you refer to is,and as for importing cheese from California-------That had me curled up on the floor.Ever heard of New Zsaland. Anyway all joking apart most Farang (me included) when they come here to stay find that their diet does change and you start to enjoy all sorts of stuff that you used to turn your nose up at the beginning..As they say "try it you'll like it"--------- Dougal the Kiwi

Well, I do vaguely, very vaguely, recall hearing about some distant place filled with Kiwis... Can't say much more than that though....

But, if you do have a recommendation for some Kiwi cheese that Villa stocks, I'd be willing to give it a try... My preference is cheddar. Heck, I even had a Kiwi fruit for lunch the other day... quite good!!!

PS - I wasn't buying the California cheddar from Villa because it was from California... I was buying it because a) it was good, and b] it was the best priced sliced real cheddar they had in stock. If I wanted to pay a fortune for cheese, I'd buy their Tillamook cheddar from (I believe) Oregon, which happens to be another place in the old USA.

Try "Mainland" vintage aged cheddar, aged for 24 months, or the next one up the ladder, "Mainland" Epicure aged cheddar, aged for 36 months.........both very good.

That "distant place filled with Kiwis" also makes Internationally acclaimed wines, Manuka honey (antibacterial properties) and has a great range of fruit, some of which you can buy here, and New Zealand is the worlds largest exporter of dairy commodities............and nearly forgot the great NZ lamb, Mussels and superb Venison.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Try "Mainland" vintage aged cheddar, aged for 24 months, or the next one up the ladder, "Mainland" Epicure aged cheddar, aged for 36 months.........both very good.

Thanks.. I'll take a look.... What, about 300-400 baht for a 200-250g package???

[xylophone]

Try "Mainland" vintage aged cheddar, aged for 24 months, or the next one up the ladder, "Mainland" Epicure aged cheddar, aged for 36 months.........both very good.

Thanks.. I'll take a look.... What, about 300-400 baht for a 200-250g package???

No, about 180 baht for 250g for the Vintage cheddar. Reasonable I think.

[rwdrwdrwd]

The Epicure is great, also their Swiss cheese is pretty nice

[Pla shado]

Having a hard time finding corn meal again, can't fry fish properly without.

The Sathorn area Makro market in BKK in the past 6 months or so began stocking a line of frozen El Charro Mexican food products in 1 kg bags -- guacamole, corn meal, frijoles, -- and packages of their flour tortillas and pre-prepared small burritos.

Here's the corn meal they are stocking, and those are all locally produced here, so no supply problems, though seems a bit pricey.

Corn Paste 1 kg-Makro-XXXb.jpg

BTW, that same Makro has also continued to stock the Casa Fiesta brand of the huge 115 oz canned varieties of sliced jalapenos (372b) and frijoles with lard (259b).

Jalapenos Sliced 3 Kg-Makro-372b.jpg Frijoles w Lard 115oz-Makro-259b.jpg

The frozen "corn meal" pictured is actually masa (nixtamalized corn). Making masa involves cooking and steeping the dried corn kernels in an alkaline solution, then cooking them until tender. The corn is then ground into a dough and used to make tortillas, tamales etc. If dried and made into a flour it is called masa harina. I use the masa pictured (from Makro) to make fresh tamales and it works great. Regular corn meal does not substitute well for masa and I've never seen it in a frozen food case. I typically buy my boxes of Alber's corn meal at Villa Market. Here in Udon Thani the corn meal can also be hit and miss with the availability.

[facthailand]

Pinto beans for refritos: McGarretts brand in green bag. My local Villa is stocked right up.

[ableguy]

Ref all the replies, a lot of what you are saying could very well be true, however have you considered that stores work on turn over. Every product in any modern store has to achieve a certain turn over based on money invested, for instance a dept store selling clothing would expect a turnover of three per annum, ie if they carry 100,000 in stock of a certain line of clothing they want annual sales of 300,000.

FMG products ie groceries they can be looking for a ten or twenty times turn over ( FMG fast moving product )

And this not per annum maybe per week, month , quarter. One also must bare in mind they will stock loss leaders ie products that sell slowly on the premise the punter who buys this will also buy other products, so it's quite a complex scenario, just food for thought, by the way in the USA clothing would be expected to turn 3times per season not per annum, but then they are masters at retailing.

[LALes]

Just saw Grey Poupon back on the shelf at Central Pattaya. How they got it and nobody else did I don't know. No other products re-stocked.

[GaryB1263]

That's bad news regarding those cheeses, I really like them as well. Easily the best value of any import cheese, great Provolone and Swiss slices. We don't have any of it ever anyway up here in Isaan, but when I visit Bangkok, those California cheeses are a staple.

The Aussie Brand Mainlander has good reasonable Swiss in 200 gram blocks for 170 baht or thereabouts. Seems to me I saw that brand in Villa as well. There are a few delis around in supermarkets and so on. I'd check those out, they may well have some reasonably priced substitutes. The supermarket in the top floor of Emporium has a cheese deli with quite a range, but more expensive.

For refries, if you have the time and energy, you can make good ones yourself from dried beans. Good refries are very tricky though and it takes hours of boiling. The hot weather here puts me off doing that anymore. They have some good ready made bean burritoes at Villa,6 to a pack or something like that, but of course you may not feel like a bean burrito sometimes.

Sounds like it is the dock strike this time, especially since someone wrote in saying there were similar shortages in Indonesia. Crossing my fingers.

Excellent point

[IMA_FARANG]

I believe this was the reason quoted elsewhere regarding a lack of Kraft products, though it's a bit more recent than just 'post-coup' - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/21/labor-fight-at-west-coast-ports-comes-to-an-end-for-now/

I think Kraft is now Canadian. I can get all the imported stuff I want from Friendship stores, and the Mega Tesco's.

-----------------------------

Do a Yahoo or Google search on the internet about Kraft Cheese Singles and you will find all the info you want to know about Kraft and it's Kraft Cheese Singles and the recall of the product by Kraft. due to suppliers product that failed Kraft quality standards.

Kraft American Singles processed cheese product is now in short supply world-wide due to the recall of the product.

[KarenBravo]

Kraft Cheese Singles.

Plastic cheese that is extruded. Yuk!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Was shopping at my local Villa in BKK this past week, and noticed they had re-stocked, FINALLY, on some of their U.S. imported stuff.

In particular, they once again had jars of Vlasic sliced sandwich pickles and their California Premium sliced and block cheeses back on the shelves.

But still no Rosarita brand products, Mezzeta jalapeno pepper jars or frozen Johnsonville sausages, among others MIA.

[ricklev]

Mezzeta peppers have been restocked at Soi 11 so they will likely show up soon for you.

Unfortunately Rosarita and Bearitos products are never kept in stock. I guess once every couple of years the distributor brings in a container, they sell out in a few months in all the farang oriented stores and then they are gone for months or years......... Hard to understand but that is the saga of refried beans in Thailand.

Edited May 24, 2015 by ricklev

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Mezzeta peppers have been restocked at Soi 11 so they will likely show up soon for you.

That's odd... I was looking at the Soi 11 store a few days ago and didn't see any Mezzetta jalapeno jars on the shelf... I specifically went looking for them, as they used to be located very close to the Vlasic pickles that had reappeared, as I mentioned above.

But... the Soi 11 folks keep moving around their product display locations... Or, perhaps the peppers were put out just after my recent visit.

[ricklev]

They are inexplicably in the area at the front of the store by the cash registers on a shelf along with some other unrelated products. ==== Oh, I just saw the red peppers, not the jalapenos.

Edited May 25, 2015 by ricklev

[maanoi]

Rimping in chiangmai has been killimg me. First they took my mince pies, then my indian curry, then my pesto sauce!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

They are inexplicably in the area at the front of the store by the cash registers on a shelf along with some other unrelated products. ==== Oh, I just saw the red peppers, not the jalapenos.

For the longest time, Villa used to stock their Italian tomato sauces right next to their Mexican salsa jars, even though they had a separate Mexican food products area in a different part of the store.

It was kind of like, well, they're both farang stuff and both red in color, so they must belong together...

So, still no jalapeno's there, huh???

Before, the Soi 11 store had stocked the Mezzetta jalapenos in pretty good quantity -- just before the U.S. products drought hit. But they also seemed to fly off the shelves pretty quickly, so I certainly wasn't the only one buying them.

[attrayant]

I have noticed some American things, like Johnsonville Italian sausage have disappeared from Villa and Friendship in Pattaya, but as stated that probably has to do with shipping issues out of the west coast of the US. Those specialty items have been there for the "lowly farang" for years and will probably reappear soon.

Thanks for adding that... Johnsonville sausages... My local Villas used to stock tons of those, probably more than a half dozen different flavors.... Also used to have regular promotions on them...

Then the stock dwindled down. And now, the past few months, NONE!

This is what I've been missing for the past 6 or 8 months. I miss my sausage & egg breakfast sandwiches. They used to have Bob Evans sausages too, also gone.

[Michaelaway]

Rimping in chiangmai has been killimg me. First they took my mince pies, then my indian curry, then my pesto sauce!

Don't know if you're into cooking, but pesto is very easy to make and garlic & basil are incredibly inexpensive in the LOS: We make it regularly and always freeze some in small zip-lock bags.

Basil-Almond Pesto

• 4 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1 bag roasted almonds
• 4+ cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/3+ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3+ cup parmesan cheese, grated
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Lemon juice to taste

In a food processor, blend the basil, garlic and roasted almonds. Slowly mix in the olive oil & process until pureed. Add parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper and mix well. Taste & adjust seasonings.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The looming question here is:

If the products disruption these past months was because of the U.S. West Coast ports labor problem, then the supplies of various things should start reappearing here.

But, it's been months now since the labor dispute was settled, and we haven't seen a lot of things that used to be regular stocked items here begin showing back up again...like the Johnsonville sausages.

So it leaves the question, was it really the ports labor issue, or something else?

FWIW, I've been talking separately with the import staff at Central about a Waitrose frozen food product that they've been running short on. From those discussions, they seem to have about an every two months delivery schedule of frozen Waitrose stuff from the UK. If frozen stuff can make it from the UK to here every two months, then the U.S. frozen stuff should have reappeared by now.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Good news from Villa Market, at least the Suk Soi 11 branch.

On a visit there today, I found they had finally restocked quite a few of their long missing items.

Lots of Casa Fiesta canned frijole and bean varieties, Mezzetta and Casa Fiesta jalapeno jars back on the shelf, still have Vlasic pickle sandwich stackers, decent stocks of Johnsonville frozen sausages, although not as many varieties as before, even have stocks of frozen Eggo waffles again (which the manager there previously had told me the supermarket chain had discontinued due to lack of demand...)

Let's hope they can at least manage to barely keep their shelves stocked for the future.

Unfortunately, the last time they were in stock some months back, the Mezzetta sliced jalapenos were selling for 149b per jar at Villa. Today they were priced at 195b per jar...for the same exact product. Someone's making a killing...

Edited July 13, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[pauleddy]

My local Villa in Aree is quite good, because I am well-known in there and I also spend 6000-10,000b a week.

However, the stock control does leave a lot to be desired. Some products are absent for months, and the staff merely shrug.

What really gets to me, though (apart from the inflated prices), is the policy on home delivery. The Ploenchit/Nana shop happily delivered with a van (6km), and the frozens were still frozen. But, it did cost me 200b.

The large Aree shop will not deliver unless you are in a nearby street.

Villa must standardise the policy on this. Surely, home delivery would work well, especially for older farangs. On-line ordering would complete the cycle.

I remember seeing a blurb about Villa delivering to home, but none of the staff know about it, or seem willing.

If anybody knows the (hugely rich) Thai guy who started Villa in the 1970s and remains the sole owner, would they please remind him of basic good marketing practice?

Eddy

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I've taken to using the online ordering / home delivery services of both Tesco and Tops on a pretty regular basis... Why not!!!

Easy to do via their websites, which are mostly available in English these days. Using their websites also makes it easy to keep track of when particular items you buy are on sale, so you can stock up. They both also allow you to keep online favorites / shopping lists of things you've ordered before or want to keep track of, making re-orders pretty easy.

Tesco will deliver for a 60 baht fee no matter how little you order, though they often have free delivery promos for larger orders. Tops lately has been offering free home delivery for orders over 888 baht (don't ask my how/why they came to that amount...)

On the other hand, I've never done a home delivery order with Villa. For starters, you can't order via their website. And, in the past when I've checked with my local store staff, their minimum amounts to home deliver were considerably higher, and I don't usually order that much from them in any single purchase.

[Jools]

I have found some odd anomalies with products here in Thailand. In the past, I have bought Safeguard bar soap because I like its unique fragrance. Many of the bars I have bought here in Thailand have little or NO fragrance. The exception is when I buy them at VIlla Markets. Same fragrance as the USA product. Does anyone know why there is this variance? It's a small thing but it is confusing.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just taking a guess here based on past experience.

 

In this world of international retailing, the big international consumer products companies have their products manufactured in different countries whose output goes to different regions/countries. And it may well be that there are subtle or sometimes not to subtle differences based on the point of manufacture, even though the product name is the same.

 

For example, around Halloween and Christmas time, I sometimes like to buy some chocolate treats like Snickers bars or Mars bars. Those are original U.S. products. And they're available here in Thailand, but if you read the Thailand-bought labels closely, you'll see the ones here are made in China for some reason. And I'm not real keen on consuming chocolates made in China.

 

Same with Doritos toritilla chips made by Pepsico. Here in Thailand, there's an export version made in Taiwan. And then there's a regular version made somewhere else (can't recall off the top of my head).

[NoshowJones]

Villa market easily are the most expensive of the Thailand Western food shops, Just compare their prices of tins of corn beef.

[NoshowJones]

On 4/21/2015 at 4:45 PM, rwdrwdrwd said:

I made my mum bring me a massive sack of a thousand Yorkshire Tea teabags a year ago not even half way through yet, still taste good

Yorkshire Tea bags are the best in my opinion. are all these common tea bags, PG Tips, Tetleys, etc, imported from Western countries?