You get to see a lot of shops in this job, but not many of them are food retailers. And even when you do wander into a new store, there are roughly two chances of it appearing particularly innovative: slim and fat.

The point is, there’s just two much at risk for the retailer and from a shopper’s perspective, familiarity really does breed, if not content, then at least, well, familiarity. At least you know where you are with Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose and Asda. Except that you don’t really, because while the big supermarkets may be risk averse when it comes to trying new things out, they do keep plugging away and the blossoming of food stores of different shapes and sizes over the last few years stands as evidence of this.

They also happen to be a bit like the proverbial buses that appear in groups of three. Last week, for instance, there were a series of superlatives from three of the big players. On Thursday, Waitrose opened the latest stage in the evolution of its “Food & Home” format, in the unremarkable Leeds suburb of Meanwood, while two days prior to this, Sainsbury’s unveiled its biggest store to date, in the scrubby south-east London commuter ‘village’ of Crayford.

Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away, Tesco opened its first F&F clothing standalone store, somewhere in Prague (sadly, didn’t get to this one) in a move that will probably mean we get to see a version of this in the UK. In supermarket terms, this is about as good as it gets and in spite of their locations, the Sainsbury’s and Waitrose stores were not just good looking, but were a move on from what has been done before and for both retailers, the future looks relatively bright if they can continue along these lines. The interesting bit is where is Asda and what’s it doing with the Netto stores or is it going to be a case of same old same old. Perhaps the envisioned network of smaller Asda stores may prove different, but it does all look a little too little, too late. Even Morrisons, post Bolland, continues to update and revamp its portfolio, but from Asda, never backwards about trumpeting its successes, hardly a peep.

You have to wonder what’s going on. But in the meantime, the UK grocery sector is having a bit of a moment, even if the generality is that things look remarkably similar. That’s just the nature of the beast. There’s a whole lot more to its than meets the eye.

 

Topics