RIP Safeway: 1962-2005 - Morrisons have finally done it

Jamez · Thu 24 Nov, 2005 03.16

martindtanderson wrote:Our local Safeway became a Morrissons 3 weeks back, and it is so much better surprisingly. The old safeway felt run down and forgotton...

Probably because it found itself competing with McDonalds.

martindtanderson · Fri 25 Nov, 2005 00.10

The staff were demoralised, the ceiling tiles were broken or missing, the place was messy, the trollies were broken or non-existant, but now, parking is free, everything is clean and bright, the staff are happier, there are more tills, better wheelchair access, no broken signs, new better layout.

Still a crap logo, and the signs are a little boring, but an improvement.

Cheese Head · Fri 25 Nov, 2005 15.28

anyone ever notice that morrisons always smelt, well, weird?

it really did.

Nick Harvey · Fri 25 Nov, 2005 21.52

Cheese Head wrote:anyone ever notice that morrisons always smelt, well, weird?

But didn't you ever wonder why it only smelt like that when YOU were in there?

rdobbie · Mon 28 Nov, 2005 11.17

The Safeway signage and in-store branding still lives on at a handful of BP/Safeway petrol stations. There's one in Warrington. I think the 50% Safeway share has been bought back by BP, but they just haven't rebranded it yet.

And for some reason Morrisons haven't yet rebranded hundreds of Safeway lorry trailers which they've adopted - a suprising lapse in an otherwise very thorough rebranding exercise. Maybe because there's too much 'downtime' involved in taking each trailer off the road to repaint it.

Nick Harvey · Mon 28 Nov, 2005 11.38

There was, and might still be, one of those BP/Safeways in Chippenham.

It always used to amuse me to walk in to pay for your petrol and demand your Nectar points from Safeway Stores Ltd on your card with its huge Sainsburys logo.

nwtv2003 · Mon 28 Nov, 2005 21.15

rdobbie wrote:The Safeway signage and in-store branding still lives on at a handful of BP/Safeway petrol stations. There's one in Warrington. I think the 50% Safeway share has been bought back by BP, but they just haven't rebranded it yet.

And for some reason Morrisons haven't yet rebranded hundreds of Safeway lorry trailers which they've adopted - a suprising lapse in an otherwise very thorough rebranding exercise. Maybe because there's too much 'downtime' involved in taking each trailer off the road to repaint it.

I think the rebranding of the Lorries is very slow, though they've both been integrated for the best part of a year now you still see a fair few Safeway lorries, even the drivers uniforms still have the Safeway logo on them.

I haven't been past that BP/Safeway for sometime now, surprised its still there, though when I last went in it was more Safeway than what it was Morrisons.

James Martin · Mon 28 Nov, 2005 22.47

Sometimes you have a Morrisons driving unit with Safeway trailer!

Jamez · Mon 28 Nov, 2005 23.22

James Martin wrote:Sometimes you have a Morrisons driving unit with Safeway trailer!

Driving unit? Is that a posh way of saying "lorry" ?

Nick Harvey · Mon 28 Nov, 2005 23.29

I think the correct term is "tractor unit" in proper, articulated lorry speak.

rdobbie · Tue 29 Nov, 2005 13.39

Nick Harvey wrote:It always used to amuse me to walk in to pay for your petrol and demand your Nectar points from Safeway Stores Ltd on your card with its huge Sainsburys logo.

Yes, there was a similar anomaly when Somerfield and Total had jointly branded petrol stations. You got Premier Points on your Total petrol, even though the BP logo was printed on the Premier Points card, and even though Total had a completely different loyalty card ('Tops') which wasn't accepted at their garages with Somerfield stores attached. Confusing or what!