Food is the one part of an Accra budget you can cut without living worse, because the gap between where Accra actually shops and where it is convenient to shop is enormous. For anything grown in Ghana, a supermarket is not a few percent dearer than a market. It is often a multiple.

— Where to shop in Accra

Which market, for what

Every Accra market sells food. These are the ones people travel for:

Market Best known for
Makola, Accra Central Everything, and the centre of the city’s trade
Kaneshie, on the Winneba road A large covered food market; fish and produce
Agbogbloshie Yam, onions, plantain and produce arriving in bulk from the north
Mallam Atta, Kokomlemle Foodstuff, and a long-established neighbourhood market
Madina and Dome The north-east of the city, and good for produce
Nima Northern and Sahelian ingredients, spices, dried fish
Your own neighbourhood market Small, close, and cheaper than any shop near it

The nearest market almost always beats the nearest supermarket for tomatoes, onions, pepper, garden eggs, plantain, yam, cassava, okro and fish. The trip is the cost, so buy for several days at once.

— How Accra’s markets work

When to go

  • Early morning is when produce is freshest and the traders who supply other traders are still selling.
  • Late afternoon is when perishables get cheaper, because a seller would rather sell tomatoes than carry them home. Choose carefully.
  • Market days matter at the smaller markets, where trading swells on particular days. Ask once and you will know for ever.
  • The end of the month is the worst time. Everyone is paid at once, and prices know it.

Understand the measures before you argue about the price

Ghanaian markets sell by the olonka, by the heap, by the bowl, by the bag and by the tuber - rarely by the kilogram. A price means nothing until you know which measure it is for.

  • Point and ask “how much for this one?” rather than asking the price of a kilo, which will get you a puzzled look.
  • Heaps are the unit for tomatoes, pepper and garden eggs. Compare the size of heaps between sellers, not the prices.
  • Bags and boxes are the cheap unit for anything you use constantly: rice, onions, oil, gari. If you can store it, buy it that way.

Buy what is in season

Ghana grows a great deal, and the price of anything in season collapses. Mangoes, avocado, oranges, pineapple and the rest have their months, and in those months they are nearly free by supermarket standards. Out of season the same fruit is imported or scarce, and priced accordingly.

Let the market tell you what to cook, rather than arriving with a fixed list. It is the largest saving available to a household that eats Ghanaian food.

Fish, chicken and meat

Cold stores sell frozen fish, chicken and meat, are in every neighbourhood, and are much cheaper than supermarkets for the same thing. Buy what you have freezer room for - and remember what dumsor does to a full freezer.

Fresh fish is cheapest near where it lands, in the fishing communities along the coast, and in the fish sections of the big markets. Go early.

Fresh meat is sold at the butchery sections of the markets. Know what you are looking at, or take somebody who does.

Buying in bulk, and affording it

Rice, oil, tinned tomatoes, soap, sugar: the price per unit falls sharply when you buy the sack, the carton or the gallon.

  • A susu or a savings group is how a great many households afford to buy at that scale.
  • Sharing a sack with neighbours is normal and costs nothing to arrange.
  • Check the date and how it has been stored. Cheap rice that has sat in a hot store is not cheap.

Getting it home

A large market shop is not something to carry. Kayayei - head porters, mostly young women from the north - will carry your load through the market and to a taxi for a fee. Agree it before they lift anything, and pay it properly.

For the journey home, a shared taxi usually beats a trotro once you are carrying more than you can hold on your lap.

— Getting around Accra

What supermarkets are still for

Imported goods. Cheese, cereal, nappies, wine, one specific branded thing. There is no cheaper option, and the price reflects duty, shipping and a thin market.

Predictability. Fixed prices, no bargaining, a trolley and a card machine. For a household that cannot reach a market before it closes, that is worth something.

If you find an imported thing you depend on, buy two. Stock moves in and out of Accra’s supermarkets unpredictably.

— Importing and customs, and what duty adds

Not overpaying, without being rude

  • Ask two or three sellers before buying anything costly. Prices vary inside one market.
  • Bargaining is normal for produce and not for packaged goods. Nobody haggles in Melcom.
  • Find a seller and go back to them. A trader who expects to see you again gives a better price than one who does not.
  • Small notes and MoMo both work. Small notes work everywhere.

— What a month in Accra costs — What to eat in Accra — Accra’s markets Where to eat cheaply in Accra