Work related im fairly often in Western Europe and I noticed that the very same supermarket products as here are of better quality there. Often for less the price. Anyone else has the same impression?

It’s a well documented phenomenon called "Dual Food Quality". Companies basically use the Balkans as a dumping ground for inferior versions of their products. They keep the labels identical but swap out the real ingredients for cheap fillers like palm oil and high-fructose corn syrup, then hide behind the "local taste preference" excuse to keep their profit margins high. In Bulgaria, this is bad because the Schwarz Gruppe (Lidl and Kaufland) effectively runs a monopoly. Since they control such a huge chunk of the market, there’s zero competitive pressure for them to bring in the high-grade versions of products they sell in Germany. They know there are not so many options (especially in smaller cities/towns), so they get away with selling lower-tier stock at Western prices. To stay untouchable, they play the "job creator" card. Like any effective cartel, they pay slightly better salaries than local shops so they can immediately shut down any backlash about food quality by pointing to how many "quality jobs" they provide.