Supermarket Sweepstakes

Supermarkets – know your enemy

I called into the Oriental supermarket on the way home. It isn't like a typical supermarket. The aisles are wide, open, low, and the place does not feel crowded or rushed. Everything's set out in a sensible order (or at least one that makes sense to me).

I like getting a ¾ litre bottle of soy sauce for around a pound, oyster (not the con that is oyster flavoured) sauce at a fraction of what Tesco and their mates want to charge for a miniature. I like getting small (or they lose their flavour and go soggy) bags of spices for between forty and sixty pence a pop. I like finding new things to try, rather than desperately trying to find what should be routinely stocked items that no-one's heard of.

If there's nore than one person waiting, they open another till. One person scans and weighs your food, another bags it ready to go.

Here the IF user guide:

Tesco:

Avoid at all costs. To shopping what the Evil Empire is to Star Wars. A joyless exercise in speculative land acquisition, and in taking as much of your money as possible. There's not a supermarket-inappropriate field they won't branch into. A miserable experience at best, at worst they'll have you losing the will to live.

Waitrose:

Not actually more expensive than the (supposedly) more downmarket alternatives, but don't ever say that to the snobbish twats doing their shopping there.

Iceland:

There's a lot of evidence that frozen food is just as good as fresh. That's because (a) in this comparison, 'fresh' means supermarket 'fresh', which means 'stale', and (b) the frozen food companies have paid for the evidence.

This is where those mums Jamie Oliver's on about shop for an endless stock of microwave, processed,garbage.

Sainsbury:

The Daily Mail to Tesco's Sun.

Lidl and Aldi:

The last one I went to was actually full of pretty jolly people, and pretty decent staff. The stuff in those middle aisles makes me laugh. One week they're punting guitars and keyboards, the next chainsaws and strimmers, then food processors, sewing machines and tents. Firework season is a good time to go. I recommend the Lidl black pudding and the Aldi garlic footballs, with just the one big clove in each bulb.

Marks & Spencer:

Poncey.