Somerfield is bought out by The Co-Op

[Nick Harvey]

I bagsy the lager and chocolate aisles.

But who does that leave in charge of the petrol forecourt?

[wells]

Well how about we all club together and buy one of the stores then, before Tesco and Morrisons get the chance? Here's the first twenty quid. I bagsy the lager and chocolate aisles.

How about Metromart as a name?

[Mr Q]

Although the Co-op plans to rebrand all the Somerfield stores it keeps, more than 100 of the 880 Somerfield outlets around the UK will probably have to be sold to larger rivals such as Tesco and Asda to satisfy the Office of Fair Trading's competition concerns. Morrisons along with upmarket chain Waitrose and frozen food grocer Iceland have also been tipped as potential interested buyers of individual stores.

Being forced to sell some of the stores I don't understand. Fair enough, the OFT will have concerns about competition. But with no exception I can think of, the only people interested in buying a supermarket will be another supermarket chain. And with Somerfield allready being one of the smaller players in this limited marketplace, why give the likes of Tesco and Sainsburys (who don't need to buy any cheap secondhand stores in order to expand) or Morrisons (who allready had a huge boost to their store count when they bought Safeway 4 years ago) an easy ride to growing even bigger?

Surely if Co-Op were able to buy Somerfield lock stock and barrel, retaining all the stores, then that would create a more level playing field and improve things for the consumer. As it is, co-op gets bigger but that's negated because everyone else gets bigger still, whilst there will now be one less player for all the chains to worry about. OFT intervention on this matter seems to benefit all of the major supermarket chains, with all of them having an easy expansion opportunity and enjoying less competition afterwords, yet the consumer could well get shat on from a great height.

You'd only see individual stores sold to Tesco, Sainsburys, etc. where those chains don't have a presence. Presumably there are some areas where Somerfield and The Co-Op are the two main supermarkets or, say, two of the three main supermarkets. Thus, with their merger, the combined entity would enjoy substantial market share, which could allow them to increase prices to the detriment of consumers. By forcing the merged entity to divest themselves of individual stores, consumers should be no worse off - there will still be another competitor. As a consequence, I presume the regulator would only be satisfied where those stores are sold off to firms not currently serving the relevant local markets - otherwise, what would be the point?

[Pete]

sorry for dragging this back up but...

(even continuing to sport such oldschool features as being a 'walk through' shop with checkouts at both ends - I can't think of anywhere else you still see that).

I saw this in a branch of "Rewe" in Dusseldorf and thought it an astoundingly brilliant idea. I can see no reason why shops in Britain don't use this. Although having said that, with my travels though Germany and Italy it's clear that we have the most savvy supermarkets that not only know how to perfectly control and condition their customers but are a damn useful thing.

€4 I had to pay for asprin in Germany when I can get it for 16p in Tesco, and things such as their petrol war at the moment benefit everyone.

Depsite this I'd *love* to see the bottle deposit concept in Tesco. All plastic bottles (PET) have a deposit in the price which can be reclaimed from an automated recycling machine in the shop. Admittedly due to their tapwater being undrinkable there is much more bottled water than over here but it still seems a damn good idea.

On a related note (and I fear I'm turning this into the new supermarkets general thread) does anyone have a Tesco near them with one of these fabled robot recycling things?


Ours certainly doesn't, instead having a load of council skips at the end of the carpark that always seem to get full very quickly and overflow. If nothing else I want my damn green clubcard points for it.

Oh and in Dundee Tesco News, the branch at South Road (formally a B&Q) was demolished a few months back and now there is an enormous Extra being thrown up at great speed, this means that we'll now have two extras within half a mile one of another as well as the massive Riverside branch which *is* an extra but pretends not to be for some reason.

[nwtv2003]

On a related note (and I fear I'm turning this into the new supermarkets general thread) does anyone have a Tesco near them with one of these fabled robot recycling things?


Ours certainly doesn't, instead having a load of council skips at the end of the carpark that always seem to get full very quickly and overflow. If nothing else I want my damn green clubcard points for it.

I popped into Tesco Extra Irlam the other week and noticed they had one of these things, luckily my car was full of emtpy Coke bottles (you know when you can't be arsed putting them in a bag and taking them to the bin) so I used this new fangled device, it was rather efficient, you could only put one thing in at a time, and I think you could get Green Clubcard points too.

Without turning this into a Supermarket thread, Morrisons are bringing in the Pay At Pump and it's slowly being phased in through the country, our local Morrisons Petrol is shutting for a week this Friday to have them installed.

[Pete]

ah there's another interesting this, we have a new build morrisons and it has pay at pump with chip and pin. rather nice.

In about January I noticed a sign at Tesco Extra stating "chip and pin at pumps by easter". This sign mysteriously disappeared and no such thing has occurred.

[Nick Harvey]

The pumps at Tesco Trowbridge were upgraded to chip and pin about three weeks ago.

They still haven't managed to get the pump to recognise your "5p off every litre if you spend £50 or more" voucher though. You still have to pay at (the end of the very long queue at) the kiosk if you've got one of those.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

My local asda has two chip and pin pumps alongside the 4 standard pumps. Strangely, the local Yorkshire folk don't seem to trust such new fangled technology and would rather queue for a standard pump, then at the drive through pay point, rather than use the much faster chip and pin pumps.
I'm not all that bothered to be honest, it just gives me a further opportunity to look a bit smug during my shopping trips!

[cwathen]

I do wish Plymouth Co-Op would sort out their ranging issues though. Not only do they not seem to realise that the larger stores can carry more products (the tiny shop at the end of my road carries exactly the same range as one 4 times the size a few streets away - the larger store has nothing more in it) but they seem to have issues with sourcing and maintaining a constant range. A good example is their steak - in the last 3 months it's evolved from braising steak, to steak strips, to rump steak, to sirloin steak, to a twin pack of sirloin steak...and currently they have no steak. This happens with all sorts of products - just because you bought something there last week, you can't rely on that product still being there next week.

Steak service now resumed at Plymco. The single pack of sirloin is back. At the same, a new product, the curiously named 'Pasty Beef' has turned up next to it. Two decent sized bits of meat (rather oddly one is twice the thickness of the other) and at the bargain price of £1.86.

Although a cheaper 'non-steak' cut, I decided to find out what would happen if I ignored the advice to use it in pasties and fried it up as a steak. So I'm now eating my 'pasty beef', marinated in soy sauce and slowly cooked in butter. A bit fatty, but not actually that bad considering the price. The thinner cut is actually nicer than some steaks I've paid over a tenner for when out.

[Stuart*]

Steak service now resumed at Plymco. The single pack of sirloin is back. At the same, a new product, the curiously named 'Pasty Beef' has turned up next to it. Two decent sized bits of meat (rather oddly one is twice the thickness of the other) and at the bargain price of £1.86.

The Plymco at the top of my road has no such bargains, damn you

[Nick Harvey]

Rich landlords don't need bargains.