Metropol

Interestingly on the continent they have dedicated areas to leave such granny trolleys, as well as some transparent lockers to place your shopping in. I was a bit confused by initially the first time I saw the array ofthese tied up by the entrance, but I guess it is a good anti-theft measure.

M&S launched a "buy 6 sandwiches, get your 7th free" offer trial in Scotland yesterday, due to run for three months.



The coffee stamps card has now disappeared from my Sparks app (not that I used it).

According to the blurb, includes all sandwich, roll and wrap products available in M&S Food stores including Moto services exclusively in Scotland.

Excludes: Food to Order, M&S Café and coffee bars. M&S Outlet, WHSmith high street stores, and BP Connect stores. Stamps cannot be earned in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, online or on Ocado.com.

excellent work by Asda here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypdd93dv0o

thegeek wrote: Mon 12 Aug, 2024 20.26 excellent work by Asda here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypdd93dv0o

How does that even occur?

a symptom of poor leadership?

Sky News are on the case too:

https://news.sky.com/story/whats-gone-w ... a-13196356

thegeek wrote: Mon 12 Aug, 2024 20.26 excellent work by Asda here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypdd93dv0o

When I was a kid we had some lamb chops go through the till at Sainsbury's for several hundred pounds. If only the clickbait internet existed back then, we could've monetised our terrible misfortune.

gottago wrote: Thu 15 Aug, 2024 13.48

thegeek wrote: Mon 12 Aug, 2024 20.26 excellent work by Asda here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypdd93dv0o

When I was a kid we had some lamb chops go through the till at Sainsbury's for several hundred pounds. If only the clickbait internet existed back then, we could've monetised our terrible misfortune.

Presumably the difference being that your parent(s) and/or guardian(s) didn't pay the erroneous amount and suffer financially as a result.

thegeek wrote: Thu 15 Aug, 2024 11.27 a symptom of poor leadership?

Sky News are on the case too:

https://news.sky.com/story/whats-gone-w ... a-13196356

Not really much of a surprise they've always been the 'worst' of the supermarket in terms of quality etc and were always going to be the shop that ALDI and LIDL ate away at. Coupled with bad leadership, not helping either.

Some of their stores like Blyth and Ashington are a complete waste of time going in now as there's never anything in so why bother. Ironically the Morrisons in Blyth isn't much better, not really a surprise you can't get a space at Sainsbury's at Cramlington and Whitley Bay most days nowadays and they're packed.

One thing I've noticed is Asdas aren't clean any more. They were always completely spotless, which I suspect was due to having a well resourced in-house cleaning team rather than an outsourced skeleton staff like others. I'm not sure if they've outsourced or cut hours or what, but the stores have gone downhill in that regard.

Cleaning used to be outsourced to facilities company City, but using well staffed in store teams.

Then a few years ago, just before Covid they brought cleaning back in house but massively reduced the number of hours around for it. They pushed clean as you go instead - which nobody ever has the time to do because hours were cut everywhere.

I see Waitrose is planning to open around a hundred convenience stores and refurbish a number of existing stores too. I think convenience stores in the UK are generally quite poor so this’ll be interesting to see.