Supermarkets

Buying groceries in Indonesia is easy. What has changed since this page was first written is the map: the chains have consolidated hard, foreign names have come and gone, and much shopping now happens on a phone.

Minimarts to hypermarts

Minimarkets are everywhere. Two Indonesian chains, Indomaret and Alfamart, now run around 44,000 outlets between them, more than any other retail network in the country. Near-identical: limited range, long hours, reliable for water, snacks, top-ups and household basics. Circle K survives as the Western-style 24-hour option, strongest in Bali.

One point on alcohol: since a 2015 regulation, minimarkets across most of Indonesia may not sell beer. Bali is the exception, where tourism-zone bylaws still let Circle K sell Bintang to over-21s. In Jakarta, buy beer at a supermarket or a licensed liquor shop.

Two names from the old version of this page are gone. 7-Eleven, once treated as the coming thing, closed every Indonesian store in 2017, killed by that alcohol ban and by the Indomaret/Alfamart machine. Lawson has shrunk and was absorbed by Alfamart in 2025.

Above them sit the supermarkets and hypermarkets. Super Indo is now the largest supermarket by store count; Hypermart is a nationwide chain across seventy-odd cities, not the small-town also-ran it once was. Carrefour, the "French behemoth" this page used to describe, no longer exists here: CT Corp bought it and rebranded it Transmart, which is itself closing stores fast. Giant shut entirely in 2021; Hero Supermarket was sold off in 2024 and carries on at a fraction of its old size.

Worth knowing: the government is now restricting new minimarket permits in villages, to protect traditional warung and push state-backed "Merah Putih" village cooperatives. Existing stores stay open; only the frontier is closing.

Dying for comfort food?

For imported cheese, cold cuts, wine and your children's breakfast cereal, you need the premium stores. In Jakarta: Ranch Market and Farmers Market (now under the Blibli/Djarum group), Grand Lucky, Kem Chicks and The Foodhall, which is the old Sogo supermarket renamed back in 2005. In Bali: Grand Lucky, Pepito, Bintang and a shrinking Bali Deli. Expect home prices or worse. Most modern supermarkets in Jakarta and Bali keep a separate pork section for non-Muslim shoppers; smaller country stores will not.

Shopping without leaving home

The biggest change is the phone. Most Indonesians now shop online several times a month, groceries included. Delivery services such as HappyFresh, Sayurbox, Segari, Astro and BlibliMart, plus the big marketplaces Shopee and Tokopedia, will bring anything from a crate of water to imported cheese to your door. Outlet names and numbers change constantly, so do not trust a printed list, this one included.

Contributor: nicklemeister

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