I lean toward the market feel. It’s so much more welcoming and I feel more accomplished lol. The open air feels more inviting and just bustling in the throng of people is fun.
Supermarkets in Malawi 🇲🇼 are relatively small. The staff is not that motivated which is understandable. It breaks my heart how they have to be so mechanical for hours.
Not to say vendors are free of worries and disadvantages though.
I buy stuff from all sorts of places. I’m pretty serious about food and cooking, and I run through a pretty wide variety of cultures and regional variation in making my food. So for me, this is how I buy:
Fresh produce in season: street markets
Fresh produce out of season (greenhouse grown or shipped in from another latitude): Whole Foods
Mainstream American prepackaged foods: nearest big box corporate supermarket.
Day to day meat, dairy, and seafood (chicken, beef, pork, shrimp): Whole Foods
Specialty meat (aged stuff, unusual cuts): local specialty butcher, ethnic grocery stores
Specialty seafood (live seafood, less common items): specialty seafood shop
Fancy cheeses: cheese store in my neighborhood, occasionally Whole Foods
Various ethnic specialities (Kim chi, tortillas, paneer, certain types of Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese vegetables, Mexican/Indian spices) that are perishable: ethnic grocery stores
Unusual or imported prepackaged or shelf stable foods/spices: ethnic grocery stores, Amazon, other online stores depending on the item.