Malaysia — Johor Bahru — Supermarkets in Malaysia

A small study of my local supermarkets in Malaysia

June 2015

Admittedly, this is a relatively small study with a small sample size, but while living in Malaysia, I had a choice of three supermarket chains.

Mydin

Mydin was popular and cheap, with usually terrible service and huge queues at the checkout.

Generally, the supermarket was good for fruit and vegetables, and not so good for meat, but fish was OK. Mydin was also not great for milk and often had no cheese. My local Mydin also sold clothes and household goods.

As Mydin was a Muslim-run company; hence there were no pork products or alcohol.

When leaving a Mydin, keep your receipt handy, as, on exit, they may wish to stamp it. I'm not sure why this was done.

Tesco

Tesco had better service than Mydin, with typically shorter checkout queues.

My local Tesco dod clothes and household goods.

The fruit, veg, meat, and fish were not great.

I tended to use Tesco for bulky 'dry' goods, beer, and pork.

My local store had a better range of goods than Mydin, but it had some supply issues, with products vanishing for months.

Tesco finally pulled out of Malaysia in around 2020.

Aeon/Jusco

Again, like Mydin and Tesco, there were supply issues.

Aeon/Jusco did sell alcohol and pork products.

Annoyingly, the store would stick bits of ‘sold’ tape all over your purchases as you left and sealed the tops of your plastic bags with the tape. I had no idea why they bothered doing this.

Queues at Aeon/Jusco were generally bad, as the store manager did not know how many staff members they needed on the tills during busy periods.

The image below shows a typical chaotic scene at the supermarket.