A product is something made to be sold, an item of goods: a new product, cleaning products. It isn't the everyday word for the food you buy: food is simply food, and the things you buy at the supermarket are groceries. The word does appear with food in phrases like dairy products, but that names a category of goods, not what's in your shopping bag.
product: will you get the meaning right?
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a new + product; launch/sell + a product; dairy/cleaning + products; the product of + hard work; buy food / groceries (not products)
- Our company is launching a new product next month, so everyone is working late.
- This shop sells only local dairy products, like cheese, yoghurt and butter.
- You can return any product within thirty days if you keep the receipt.
What changed
First versionI need to buy some products for dinner on my way home.
RevisionI need to buy some food for dinner on my way home.
In some languages a word like products is the usual way to talk about food shopping, so buy some products can seem natural. But a native speaker hears “buy some goods” and won't know what kind. Food for dinner is simply food, and shopping from the supermarket is groceries: I'll pick up some groceries on the way home.
Fruit and vegetables in shops are often called produce, stressed on the first syllable: fresh local produce. In a figurative sense, product means “a result”: Her success is the product of years of hard work.
Your turn
Every Saturday we drive to the supermarket and buy ___ for the whole week.
Show the answer
groceries — The sentence is about food for the whole week from the supermarket, which is groceries. Products means goods in general, and a native speaker wouldn't use it to talk about buying food for the week.
Write about something you bought recently and are happy with. Use product, name the item and explain what makes it good.
The best product I've bought this year is a small electric kettle: it boils water in a minute and switches off by itself.
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