Dear new supermarket that replaced my local grocer

MAY 24, 2015

AN OPEN LETTER TO SUPERMARKETS:
www.news.com.au
Last year, a sad thing happened in my neighbourhood.
None of us realised it was sad at the time; it just seemed like a little more of the ‘PROGRESS!’ that we are always encouraged to embrace. Like it shouldn’t be that big a deal.
The sad thing was this: our local supermarket was taken over by one of the Big Two – news that seemed impossible when we first heard whispers of it. After all, our local was a tiny outfit, sandwiched between some apartments and an underground carpark. But apparently the owner had been offered a sum of money too huge to turn down and, sure enough, a few weeks later there was a “Closing” sign on the front window, right next to the giant white neon letters that read “Supermarket now open”.
The shelves were emptied and there were lots of conversations about whether people would be staying on. One of the lovely managers, Colin (who could often be seen chasing local children down the aisles to give them a strawberry Freddo), assured us that everyone had been offered jobs by the Big One taking over, and my friend Louise was actually excited about it, so we thought: “This might actually be OK.”
And so we waited in anticipation as our familiar, shabby, sweet independent grocer was gutted and rebuilt, and they reconfigured shelves, and they took away the big white neon letters (which seemed odd, because who doesn’t love a neon sign?). And then it reopened, and somehow it looked exactly like every other Big One everywhere else, but smaller. It was brightly lit. It was clean and sparkling. A couple of the old staff were there, wearing new uniforms.
It should have been fine. But it wasn’t. Because I (unlike your senior executives, apparently) actually go shopping for groceries. In your stores. And this necessary and once not-unpleasant chore has become a dreaded part of my life.
Kate doesn’t want to buy the supermarkets own brand. She wants to buy the brands she know

Kate doesn’t want to buy the supermarkets own brand. She wants to buy the brands she knows. Source: News Corp Australia
You see, I have a job. In fact, I have a few jobs. None of them (and I have checked this with my manager) are ‘working for a supermarket’. Yet, bizarrely, when I frequent your business, you expect me to scan and pack my own groceries. This is blindingly obvious, because the self-scan part of the stupor-market is now huge. Also, you have removed all the conveyor-belt registers and replaced them with tiny stainless-steel recesses, like in those American prison shows where you have to pick up the phone to speak to your incarcerated loved one. In these tiny metal bunkers there is barely room to unpack more than four items, and nowhere at all to put the bags when filled. You also have a maximum of two people on the service checkouts, no matter that the queue of people waiting to be served is as long and winding as an Amazonian river. This is a policy you’ve clearly implemented because you want to make more money and hire fewer people.
But here’s the thing. I do the shopping for six people, so I am not going to scan my own groceries. EVER. And no matter how modern or efficient they think they are being, every person who self-scans their groceries is actually putting another person out of a job. And who wants to do that? I mean, aside from you.
Also, this may surprise you, but I, like most humans, grew up eating food. So there are brands of milk, and cheese, and pickles, and tinned corn, and nuts, and cordial that I know and like. I want to buy them. I don’t want to buy your home brands, so you can control more of the food supply chain and squeeze producers harder and push farmers to the brink, so that you can make more money. But you want me to buy your products, so you place them at eye level and consign brands you don’t own to shelves so inaccessible, I now need to take a hidden-treasure map, Twister board and advanced yoga course to reach them. Or you don’t stock them at all. This makes me really dislike you.
Finally, I am not a member of any clubs. If I were, I still wouldn’t be in yours. I don’t have one of your loyalty/fidelity/monogamy cards, and I don’t want one. I am not swearing allegiance to a corporation, even if, in 10 years of accumulating points, it may get me a free toaster. So stop asking me every time I shop if I have a card, and if I want one. I don’t. And I don’t. I know you think we’re sheeple, but some of us are actually people.
And I guess, when you were a child, no manager at your local grocery store ever gave you a pat on the head and a strawberry Freddo. But let me tell you: it was sweet.