Worldwide Foods

Well this place looked like a zoo from the outside but i was willing to jump in to find what i went there for. Store was unorganized, Ppl at the meat dept. were talkin loudly the WHOLE time i was there, Cashier seemed angry, rude and never smiled or said a word when she was spoken to. Am giving it one star cause dairy products were fairly priced but i wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone.

good value shop, as everything in bulk at a resonable price
butchers section is good with freash meat and friendly service
open late in case you have forgotton something

M’dear Worldwide,
You come to my rescue every time I run out of those authentic spices my mum sends from India. Whenever I am craving for some fresh water fish I don’t think of anyone but you and the fresh mutton you have is absolutely delicious! Our love affair started 3 years back and I have to let you know that I just can’t get enough of you!
I feel the need to let people know how special you have been, your fresh fruits and vegetable section outside can give any farmer a run for his money! I never buy Basmati rice from anywhere else but you and the Ghee (Indian butter) you have has earned me so many brownie points for making a kickass Biriyani! You have very friendly people working for you, always ready to show me my way around whenever I get lost in your gigantic store.
Hereby, I conclude my letter stating that you live by your name and every one in Manchester who wants to make authentic Indian food should definitely pay you a visit.
Your biggest fan,
Shrim
Verdict: All you folks wanting to cook up a curry at home, you know where to go now!

When you fancy something a little different from the usual trip to Asda, change the habit and go to Worldwide Foods — you won’t be disappointed. Not only is it different in the produce it stocks (you will find absolutely everything you could want here and not just ingredients for Indian cuisine) and different in the price (you will get fresher than fresh for a fraction of supermarket prices), Worldwide offers you the feeling that you’re not in Kansas anymore. Outside amongst the wide range of fruit, vegetables and salad, you could be forgiven for thinking you are in a Middle East market (the Mancunian rain will prevent any pangs of home sickness) and inside, music from another culture wails across the store as you select from a huge range of dried and tinned goods.
A great store to shop in or wander round for some culinary inspiration. The perfect opener to the curry mile.

For the cash-​strapped student to the cultural chef, this place has everything under its roof. From large bags of rice to jalfrezi sauce and much more besides, this is perfect for anyone on a budget.
Its location is perfect for those students living in Wilmslow Court/​Hulme Hall accommodation for the University of Manchester students but is also handy for anyone walking back from uni to grab food for the night.
The prices are reasonably cheap but of course you can get any Asian cuisine ingredient required frm cooking oils to halal ready meals. This supermarket also boasts a large fresh fruit market out the back of it next to its big car park, perfectly adequate for anyone wanting fresh produce.
Service at the tills can be slow, and with the feel of everything being piled up down the thin aisles, a claustrophobic feel can be given across but it is definitely worth it for those wishing to not spend loads in the nearby Tesco and want a variety from the LIDL food.
The butcher in-​store provides many types and cuts of meat, which living in a very meat-​eating student house of guys does help, for a small price. The quality of all food is good and is recommended.

Problem: there’s something you want to cook, some ingredient for some recipe, and you can’t seem to find it *anywhere* in the convenient area around UofM campus. Seriously, you’ve been looking everywhere and just can’t FIND it.
Solution: Worldwide. They will have it (most likely). A special kind of spice, a bag of dried beans, teas, noodles, meats, produce… they have everything! For fairly cheap prices, too. I don’t make this my primary place to shop, but I stop by to stock up on dried goods and spices periodically, or if I’m in the mood for fruit that you won’t find in the local groceries.

Worldwide Foods. Not just a clever name my dears, certainly not. While its location on the Curry Mile might make you think it’s an Indian supermarket, well! Remember that it’s not only Indian restaurants in Rusholme. Okay, so most of them are curry houses, and that’s reflected in the fact that Worldwide Foods is mostly Indian, but you’re just as likely to find your Turkish flatbreads or your Jerk seasoning here as you are your Patak’s pastes and poppadoms.
But you’ll find so much more. As I found out far too late on the way out, there’s a massive fresh produce fruit and veg stall at the back. There’s also a Halal butchers, and tons of stuff you’ve probably never heard of. We picked up some unusual little treasures like miniature crisp puri breads with cumin seeds, like tiny poppadoms, sweet buns made with sesame seeds and egg, and crumbly shortbread-​like biscuits with coconut and topped with chopped pistachio and almonds. In fact, if you’re as unfamiliar with ethnic sweets as I am, you may well spend most of your time in the cookie aisle to pick up new treats.
As well as this there are additional niche items like rose syrup (for faluda methinks), tropical drinks, every kind of Bombay mix you can think of, canned goods and tons of pulses and rice… just do what I did and explore. It’s so much fun. Worldwide Foods is nothing short of a culinary adventure!

Fact: India produces 86% of the world’s spices — and all countries producing 1% or more are Turkey or east thereof. Accordingly, shopping at Worldwide Foods, Manchester’s biggest Indo-​Pak supermarket, has the potential to massively improve your homecooking — if you know what you’re doing!
With such a world of diversity and novelty, it’s counterproductive to try and fathom everything on offer here; much better to take it one step at a time and do some background research on recipies and so on. I’ve found good basic information on
on different regional cuisines — Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines being my current focus.
Entering round the back, forklift trucks are visible through the fence shifting various pallets — and such a big, dynamic ethnic food business is a credit to Manchester. The fruit & veg section is a diverse marvel of down-​to-​earth market freshness and value! It is both amusing and heartwarming to watch the Afro-​Caribbeans make a beeline for their beloved yams, scotch bonnet peppers, etc and likewise for the other ethnic groups with their own favourites. I found fellow customers really friendly and helpful — on my last visit, I learned that yam can be cooked much like potato, and what a cassava looks like (about half the stuff isn’t labelled!)
I mainly played safe, and went for what I knew — sharon fruit, a box of lychees (special offer), a bag of okra, bunched flat parsley & mint. I risked £1.38 on a box of fresh ‘Sweet Tamarind’ — delicious, and one of my staples henceforth.
Inside, I grabbed a 1kg pot of my favourite yoghurt (Onken), which I have daily as lassi, priced at £1.89.
As I tend to cook from scratch, the rest on my shop was for speciality dried foods — channa dhal, black sesame seed, decorticated cardamom seeds, star aniseed, bay leaf and whole milk powder for making Indian sweets such as barfi.
Of course, it’s also useful to identify your ultra-​local ethnic foodstore — I also grab okra, coriander leaf, flat parsley etc from Strawberry Garden in the Arndale Centre when I’m passing. But as Worldwide Foods Rusholme is the biggest Indo-​Pak supermarket in the Manchester area (as far as I know), you owe yourself a visit to mission control!
Note (1): Check the website for other store locations — Worldwide have a total of seven stores, including one in Rochdale.
Note (2): I only review vegetarian food.

A seemingly unobtainable treasure, you might find yourself gawping through the window into Worldwide unable to get in. That’s because the door is round the back and you are stupid, but its ok — everyone has done it.
If you are looking for some interesting fruits and vegetables, fresh halal meat, Indian sweets, value rice or lentils or any other collection of foods you might not be able to find at an English chain supermarket, head round the back of Worldwide and gorge yourself silly. Stocking a good selection of ‘worldwide’ foods, the shop focuses mainly on Indian and Pakistani foods, although you can find Polish, Iraqi, French and Italian brands here too.
Worldwide is best for its great selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. You can find a Chinese pear next to fresh yam or watermelon, all for great prices. Also oddly selling very cheap baby care items and some delicious Indian sweets, Worldwide has pretty much anything you could want at some really good prices.

I would agree with most of the positive reviews here — Worldwide has pretty much everything you could need (although it sells them in massive ungainly amounts which are completely impractical for anyone living alone to store and use) from oil and rice, to eggs, flour and meat (prepared on site by halal butchers). It is the selection of fruit and veg though that I am most impressed by.
A wide variety of produce is available, from tomatoes and bananas to yams and bonnet chillies, all loose for your own weighing and measuring. You can easily fill a fruit bowl here with a wide variety for less than £3.50 and buy enough veg to keep in accompaniments for a week for about the same price. If you so wish you are even able to buy fruit by the case with a box of Washington Red apples coming in for under £15.
Add to this the selection of hot sauces and spice mixes (just a little sprinkle of the jerk mix would make any food better, probably just me that actually) and you have the third stop in the tesco-​lidl grocery shopping triangle at the Victoria Park end of Oxford road.

Worldwide truly lives upto its nameand brings to you food from all over! Mainly concentrating on the middle-​eastern and Indian/​Pakistani Cuisine requirements.
There is a wide vareity of vegetables to choose from, which you many not get anywhere in the city! There’s fresh fruits as well and not to forget the dirt cheap prices that come with it! Fresh, healthy and cheap, what more could one ask for! Worldwide also has a large collection of different breads from pita to garlic naan to chapatti (roti)-which is basically tortilla. It sells a lot of drinks on wholesale and when you add it all up, you realise you’ve probably paid 11p per can! It is moments like those that you realise that you are in love with this place!
Amazing place to get your daily groceries from!

Worldwide is a blessing for many people who live and work in Manchester. It has one of the largest ranges of, without being crass ‘worldwide’ foods available in the city — on top of regular supermarket fare, and they have superb prices.
Sitting proudly at the end of the Curry Mile, Worldwide is great for students and those who love to experiment with food. Be it spices, unusual breads or interesting fruit and veg — Worldwide stocks it all, and in vast quantities. The shop can feel a bit like walking through a warehouse, as the shelves are packed to breaking point, with stacks of food in the aisle, but this only adds to the character and personality of the shop.
The Butchery department is superb and the helpful staff will do all they can to meet your requests. Even if you want to buy an entire lamb, you can do it here — feet and all. There is the occasional cut of meat which is not for the feint hearted, but it still has one of the biggest ranges of fresh meat and poultry (with the exception of non-​halal meats) in the city. The greengrocery department is fantastic, and outside the rear of the shop underneath a canopy. The range and quality of the fresh produce sold here is superb and well worth a trip just to see.
I would definitely recommend Worldwide to anyone willing to try new things and experiment with food. It is fantastic value for money, and makes a very welcome change from the likes of Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s.

Before Lidl came to Oxford Road, Worldwide was the place where I did most of my shopping. My flatmate and I set ourselves a challenge — each time we went to Worldwide we would buy an item of fruit or veg which we had never tried before, bring it home, attempt to prepare it and sample it. This led to some rather funny looks at the counter. One one occasion, on asking our Kenyan friend for cooking information, he explained to us that they probably laughed at us because *no-​one* buys just one bhindi. We soon learnt from this school-​boy error.
As well as fruit and veg I always picked up pitta, naan and other foreign breads here, but it’s probably not the place to go for a reasonably priced loaf of Warburton’s. They also sell exciting fizzy drinks from all over the world, baklava, mango lassi and every herb, spice, bean or pulse you could think of, all of which I can recommend. Things that I have purchased from here and regretted include tinned palak paneer, a tray of 30 very unethical eggs, weird smelling incense, cheese and DIY henna.
As a vegetarian I’ve never looked at the meat counter. But I know that my Muslim flatmate bought her meat there as it is all Halal and my Chinese flatmates bought their meat there because they sold all the disgusting-​sounding parts of animals that they liked to boil up in stews, such as chicken feet.
I challenge you to visit Worldwide and not to come away with more than you went in for. Even the fruit and veg is priced so that you end up with 3 cucumbers (£1) rather than the one (50p) you went in for!

You there! Yes, you! You look like you’re in need of a massive jar of pickled chillis. No? Then how about a 25kg bag of basmati? Still no, eh? I know! A whole lamb? A drum of vegetable oil? I know! A sack of lentils!!! Yes, now we’re talking.
Worldwide Foods stocks over 7000 different products. Including a properly nice biscuit selection, and pretty much everything you will ever need to do any sort of Indian cooking whatsoever. Oh, and they also have those lush pickled chillis, which I love dearly and above all other pickled items (including onions). Take heed, however; if you quite fancy the whole lamb I mentioned above, you have to pre-​order it, as we found out when we drunkenly wandered in after a few too many beers with our curry, and tried to purchase a lamb, despite the obvious and myriad reasons not to. Namely that we had nowhere to construct a barbecue pit…
The fruit and veg selection is truly first-​rate, it’s always fresh and it’s about half the price of anything you’ll find in Tesco. As well as your common or garden potatoes and peppers, you can pick up some spectacular mangoes.
If you’re going to make a curry, you could do a lot worse than to come here and pick up some authentic curry pastes and bags of spices bigger than your head. I’m a firm fan of Worldwide. Probably because I just can’t find those chillis anywhere else…

Ignore the map at the side, which seems to think Rusholme exists far down into the beginning of Withington, and instead look for this little slice of supermarket heaven at the top of the curry mile.
It’s a great place for several reasons:
1. It offers a wide selection of foods from across the world. In fact, a WORLDWIDE selection, one might say.
2. It’s cheap, like a lot of ethnic supermarkets, which means you can pick up some real bargains.
3. It’s in a perfect location for students, as it’s the closest supermarket for a lot of halls. Unfortunately, not many choose to go.
So if you’re in need of the basic ingredients of a good meal, it’s a good idea to check here first. You may need to buy them in obscene quantities, but at least you won’t run out anytime soon.

Fancy 10kg of rice? An alarming amount of chapattis or flatbreads? Worldwide is like the world foods section of any big supermarket stretched into an entire store. The curry mile’s almost flagship supermarket is home to everything from every major corner of the planet. Cassava plants and cheap veg and fruit at the front, along with all sorts of diverse foods inside. Worldwide’s stock is always very cheap and my and friends have bought notorious quantities of fizzy drinks and 5kg worth of yoghurt (it took me a month to eat it) in the past. Good place for the skint student or world foods connoisseur alike. They also have a canned food isle with every description of bean and pulse you’ve ever heard of and a few more. The supermarket can be a place of poor or rewarding surprises unless you gain the advice of locals. A friend once bought hummus in a can, wasn’t great, looked like dog food.

this place is great for students as it’s very near daisybank villas and wilmslow court halls! it’s cheap and local!