Metropol

Hmm... fair enough. I know they ran spot-checks so there was little you could actually get away with. I thought it was a cracking little system tho'.

The Green Boxes that they also gave out in the mid-90s are still used by us to this day! Admittedly not for shopping but mum's gone off the Safeway in Hinckley bigstyle ever since Morrisons took over. She goes to Somerfield now, which is what a lot of people seem to be doing since the Morrisons takeover.

It's a very lame comparison but take the 2 "new" or "21st-Century" versions of Crossroads - Series 2 (orange version) and series 3 (purple version). Series 3 failed for several reasons but chiefly because the changes made to the show when Yvon Grace took over were not wanted by the several people who were fans of Series 2. Also Series 3 was pitched at a totally different audience to that of Series 2, yet Grace felt that she would hold on to the ex-Series 2 audience.

Safeway and Morrisons are exactly the same. Only instead of being pitched at different target audiences, the shops are pitched at different socio-economic groups. Also lots of people are already fans of Safeway and these Safeway fans do not want the several changes Morrisons are inflicting upon the Safeway shops.

They're trying to turn a middle-to-upper class supermarket into a low-to-middle class supermarket, while at the same time expecting to hold on to the same customers.

All in all, Morrisons have one hideously screwed-up intregation policy.

Because the takeover has also screwed up Morrions' intention to redevelop part of Hinckley's town centre into a Morrisons (oh shit, there's a Safeway in Hinckley!) they are NOT popular with the locals here at all!

Though Morrisons and Safeway are the same company, they are 2 different stores with 2 different targets for consumers. I have worked for Morrisons for 6 months now and the majority of customers are either working class or they are old people who have very little money and can get pleased quite easily. Though as much as I like Morrisons and I do believe it has some good offers and good prices, but the company overall has quite a downmarket image and has done since......well as far back as I can think really and for me thats 1994 as that is when the one in Warrington opened.

This is something that you cannot replace Safeway with, I can understand why Morrisons wants to expand to the South of England, but what they are doing at the moment is just going tits up, I think they should stick with the Safeway brand, but they should have all of this 'We've lowered 11,000 prices' crap, but taking all that is Safeway away is a bad idea, Safeway is a very strong brand name and is associated with quality, but replacing it with an unknown with a downmarket image doesn't help at all. Maybe if Morrisons want a Southern operation they should rebrand a Safeway store in a location that has more than one Safeway, or considering that has been mentioned is to turn the Morrisons logo into a similar one of Safeways.

Now as much as I hate to say this but the majority of posts on this topic is from people's views of the ex-Safeway stores, that's fair enough and fine, but the majority of these show that alot of people haven't been into an original Morrisons store, which are alot better than the ex-Safeway ones, it is after all what has helped Morrisons finacially to buy out Safeway. Though there was a point in the late 1990's when it went ultra naff and downmarket, they had got rid of the 'M' man that used to appear in the ads, and changed their slogan to 'Tell me more at Morrisons store' which had to sound like that song out of Grease, but they finally saw sense 3 or 4 years ago when it reinstated the old slogan, the old theme remixed into a smoother version (that they still use on the radio in Morrisons stores), they have also changed themselves again this year, as they appeared to have changed their font on everything except the logo, probably to realise that they are (or want to be) a serious competitor in the retail industry.

rdobbie wrote:But sadly around 95% of Safeway's own brand products are being obliterated and being replaced with the cheap Morrisons muck. When you think that decades of delicate, painstaking product development went into all that Safeway own brand stuff - and it gets wiped out virtually overnight. Quite a shame really because they had some products you couldn't get anywhere else. It must be a really big blow for the actual suppliers of Safeway products too, just to be suddenly told their contract is finished.

For example, Safeway "Traditional Style" Lemonade was quite nice (IMO). Its replacement, Morrison's "Cloudy Lemonade" is vile and full of additives - what makes it worse is that the ingredients list is identical to that on the cheap "Freeway(?)" Cloudy Lemonade" sold by Lidl.

Yeah there are quite a few own brand products that have changed or disappeared, cloudy apple juice for example. Their packed meat and fish too is diffrent - can't buy a decent sized pack of 2 bits of breaded cod/haddock any more. Had to buy a pack of chicken thighs - they only have packs of 7, when I needed 8 as I was cooking for 4..... I mean who wants 7 chicken thighs?!

The bullshit Fishmonger advert appeared during tonight's Coronation Street, the only good thing about that is the music. And no your fishmonger can't do that!

Are the Safeway shops also getting the "Market Street" higgeldy piggeldy stuff too?

I've changed my mind on Morrisons, purely because the cashpoint in the one near my work does £5 notes

dvboy wrote:I've changed my mind on Morrisons, purely because the cashpoint in the one near my work does £5 notes

I hope you weren't charged £1.50 for the privilege...!!

Bloody hell! An ATM that actually dispenses £5 notes?!? That's rarer than a chav doing a good deed!

If its one of those little freestanding units they do dispense fivers, but as they all charge at least a quid per transaction they like to encourage "little and often" users.

Our university one used to dispense fivers. That was 6 years ago when I was there mind you. But Barclays in York you can get a fiver from, one of the older style machines anyhow.

On a different note, odd that Morrisons in Ripon should be closed as it's becoming a Sainsbury's! That's a new one!