Britain's big grocers are on the run – and shoppers are hungry for a change

Joanna Blythman
20 March 2014
The Guardian
Expensive, inconvenient and boring. No wonder we’ve grown to hate supermarkets and their last-century business model
Supermarkets are in trouble. The money men are worried. Nine years of growing sales have juddered to a standstill at Sainsbury’s. And it’s not just a dip in the cycle, or limited to Sainsbury’s. According to the retail analyst David McCarthy of HSBC, the sector “is in structural decline, with no end in sight”.
Chris Haskins, whose company used to supply supermarkets with ready meals, recently told the BBC: “They [mid-range supermarkets] believed their formula would last forever, but they’re being left high and dry.” And do we detect a hint of schadenfreude? “I think they’ll get their comeuppance,” he added. Is a seismic shift in Britain’s shopping habits now under way?
British supermarket chains have thrived on three myths – that they are cheap, convenient and that they offer a quality choice. The first has been undermined by the German discounters Aldi and Lidl. Anyone who bothers to do a comparison can see they routinely undercut Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, and the Co-op on price. Furthermore, people appreciate Aldi and Lidl for their no-airs-and-graces honesty: the price is the price, low every day, and uncomplicated.
We are sick of being hoodwinked by the smoke-and-mirrors promotions of the big chains. Consumers correctly suspect that they are being diddled into spending more than they intended and are voting with their feet. This is why Tesco’s Big Price Drop was renamed by some the Big Price Drop Flop.
Situated in central locations, Aldi and Lidl have demonstrated that out-of-town superstores on retail parks aren’t actually convenient, either. Who wants to trail round an industrial hangar to buy a carton of milk? Retail analysts have long labelled these mammoth stores white elephants.
Seeing the writing on that particular wall, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have stepped up their efforts on high streets with smaller “express” and “local” formats. But with their limited stock lists that cater to van drivers – convenience foods, stacks of fizzy drinks, and so on – they are useless places to shop if you want real food that you intend to cook. They also often charge considerably more than their bigger siblings. When I bought basmati rice in a Tesco Express, it cost £2.59, compared to £2 for the same bag in the larger Tesco up the road.
Finally, the horsemeat scandal put paid to the comforting myth that chains which brag about low prices can automatically be trusted to source wholesome, high-quality, real food.
Those indie food shops and conventional markets that survived wave after wave of supermarket expansion are now doing rather well. Alternative models of food supply, from bread-share and veg-box schemes to urban co-ops and farm shops, are thriving. Perhaps this is a reaction to the sheer boredom and standardisation of the supermarket experience. It is tedious when everyone shops in the same shops and is given a uniform choice of food. Britain is showing its appetite for creative, colourful battle stations that showcase a radically different shopping model.
What can Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, and the Co-op do to arrest their decline? Not a lot. As Haskins said, they are “too big, too complex, too many, and too expensive to run”. That last-century business model is fractured; there’s no gluing it back together.
In 2004 I wrote a book on the disproportionate power of supermarkets to a warm reception. It tapped into the resentment of communities carpet-bombed with big stores and the wistful yearning for independent shops. Back then, this reservoir of anti-supermarket sentiment was overshadowed by pessimism. Were we too late to change anything? After all, chains had already spread like headlice through a nursery. Wasn’t the juggernaut was just too big, too powerful, to stop? A decade later, it seems that it wasn’t. Our food shopping habits are changing dramatically, and forever.