Sunday, December 28, 2008

Grocery shopping: The best and the worst

In Reading, I did a lot of grocery shopping in Waitrose and Tesco because they were the nearest to where I stayed.

In London, I have pledged a different allegiance. Well, Tesco is still in the shortlist but Asda is the new kid on the block to me. Asda is owned by Wal-mart and is in the bottom league of superstores in terms of product quality.

But if you do not buy the store's own-brand products, then that is not an issue at all. Even if you did, no one is entirely sure how low quality the products are. For all we know they are just scare-mongering.

This Christmas has brought out the best and worst of the two superstores in my area. Shopping in the Southwark Tesco has always been a frustrating experience. I can never find all the stuff that I want and some of the items are printed with the wrong price information! They are just rubbish!

You'd probably need to sacrifice your newborn in order to get everything in your shopping list in the Southwark Tesco. The days running up to Christmas brought out the worst of this store. They obviously couldn't cope with the huge turnout of the customers. To be fair, behaviour of the customers also play a huge role in keeping in check with the order of the store.

These photos are self-explanatory to what I've been through a day before Christmas Eve. These guys have literally cracked under pressure!

What is this?!!

Tesco's Christmas greetings to customers. Their products were all over the place!

On the contrary, I found Asda, which was only located 400m away from Tesco, to have stood out well to the test. And this is what I observed.

Asda coped well

Despite the huge crowd

Sainsbury's too did remarkably well.

Sainsbury's

Despite all these, I know I would still shop in Tesco from time to time because of the clubcard points that I could accumulate for cash vouchers and the irresistable deals against Asda. Still, except for the good deals, Waitrose will still have my vote for the best grocery shopping experience.

2 comments:

T and T said...

The food mess at Tesco looked like they were the doings of customers. Maybe customers who shop at Asda are more considerate. Hehe

zafi said...

when i was in RHUL, i only went to Tesco as it was the closest store... Yeah a bit mess especially on Xmas/Dec Holiday.