In one odd sense, expats may be able to judge this better than Hungarians. If it is true that you cannot miss what you do not know, it is equally the case that if you have grown up with Heinz Baked Beans, for example, and you now find it from hard to impossible to buy, you very well do know what you are missing!
You may well dismiss this as a bad case of “First World problems,” but those who have lived in Hungary even longer than my 25-plus years tell me it used to be extremely difficult to get tinned tuna. The once typically British breakfast cereal Weetabix, now owned by the Chinese, was another hard-to-source product, as was recognizable bacon (as opposed to the much fattier Hungarian szalonna my hotel regularly served at breakfast in my first weeks here).
I was reminded of all of this by our interview with one of the pioneer team that brought the British retail giant Tesco to Hungary in 1996. As Martin Coulam tells Kester Eddy, Hungary was a very different country in those pre-internet days when the first store opened just a couple of years before I arrived. Size was everything back then. When I was editing the old, now defunct newspaper The Budapest Sun, the British retailer had two of its largest stores in the world in Budapest. It would have been easier to list what they did not sell than what they did (I don’t think I will ever forget the sight or smell of the giant aquariums of live fish). The Cora brand has come and gone since those days, but the likes of Aldi, Auchan, Lidl, Penny and Spar have joined local players in transforming the FMCG marketplace in Hungary.
Here’s another indicator of the progress this country has made. A frequent complaint from expats back in the day was the poor quality of customer service. If you had the temerity to attempt to pay for goods using a HUF 10,000 bill, you would be met with shrugs, a muttered “Sajnálom,” and much gesturing at the coins in the cash till. And that was if you were lucky. The response to this and so much more was often just downright rude. But all things are relative. Back at The Budapest Sun, I had a Romanian photographer. “Oh, Robin,” she would tell me, “We dream of Hungarian levels of customer service in Bucharest.” Hungary has come a long way, and I am sure Romania has, too. Sometimes, it is worth remembering that.
*****
This is our last print issue of the Budapest Business Journal before we follow our 32-year tradition of taking an August break. Our next issue will be published on Sep. 6. But the daily newsletters will continue to go out, and the website will be updated regularly every day, so you’ll still be able to keep up with the business news and information you need from Hungary. In the meantime, I hope all of you will find the time to enjoy some fun and relaxation under the summer sun, whether here or abroad.
Robin Marshall
Editor-in-chief
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of July 26, 2024.
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