Interviews and Project Findings:
Shopping in Mülheim

"There are no corner shops in Mülheim anymore but at every corner there is a supermarket. The fuel price rose from 0,80 Pf to 2 DM. There are a lot of big shopping centres, e.g. the "Forum" and the "Rhein-Ruhr-Zentrum". You can go shopping by internet too."


"Often you bought your food in little corner shops. At this time no supermarket existed. For people who worked for Krupp's company (Krupp was a big industrialist), Krupp built a special shop, called "Konsum". If you wanted to buy your food there or other things you needed an identity card of Krupp's company."


"In the few corner shops that existed you bought vegetables, fruit and groceries. Although there wasn't a wide range of products, people like to buy there because the service was friendly. Sometimes you bought things on the tick or ran into debt."


"You bought things in a little shop not far away; for bigger purchases you had to go to the town centre. We always got shoes and clothing from Essen (a larger town 10 kms away). We didn't have to buy a lot of food because we had nearly everything in our garden."


"Back then, there were fewer opportunities for shopping, and shops were more specialised. Today there are supermarkets. Packaging is a problem today - plenty of waste but no wastebins when you need them."