Store gallery: Tesco adds new Extra store to portfolio in Sunderland

The numbers are impressive. This store has a single trading floor of 70,000 sq ft, has cost £51m to build and manager Tim Howell has more than 300 staff working for him.

The newly opened Tesco Extra hypermarket in Sunderland is actually a “Format 100” store (meaning a branch of about 100,000 sq ft), although the model has been tweaked to make it appropriate to this store’s more modest footprint.

Nonetheless, although this is small by Tesco hypermarket standards, it is perfectly formed and follows all of the thinking that has become familiar in the grocer’s ‘warmed-up’ store environments, which have been evolving since the beginning of last year.

From the exterior, this means a very large, wood-clad box on the site of a former bowling alley and a “salubrious nightclub”, as a member of staff remarks about what was in place prior to the opening of the store less than a fortnight ago.

And in case there is any doubt about what has been built, the Tesco Extra sign sits atop several parts of the building - it really would be a struggle to miss this one.

It is also well connected. The Metro, the local light rail system, runs more or less to the doorstep, although if you want a more standard Format 100 Extra, the craving can be satisfied by staying on the train a few stops and alighting at Gateshead, where there is a bigger branch that has been open for close to two months. Tesco has raised its game in the Northeast.

Surprises in Sunderland

Assuming customers choose to visit the Sunderland shop, there are a few surprises. Arriving by car, the shopper rides the travelator from the car park beneath the store, and the first thing that will probably be noticed upon arrival on the first floor is that, while there is a vast amount of stock, it is easy to see from one end to the other. This is a barn-like structure and the white, metal pillars that rise to the roof at the front of the interior have been used to good effect.

The Northeast is generally colder than balmier southern climes, but this does not mean that residents don’t care for a canny barbecue, at least if the visual merchandising in this store is anything to go by.

Around several of the pillars there are ‘deal’ (aka cheap) cases of beer and cider, piled high in a circle and looking like an alcoholic bolster for each. Look a little further and there is a pergola-like structure, home to more booze, and a small, white table with a couple of outdoor chairs set upon a strip of fake grass.

The game is finally given away by the sun loungers, charcoal and a portable barbecue. It may be grey outside, but mid-week in Tesco Extra Sunderland it’s barbecue high summer. All of this is put in front of the shopper long before any kind of inspection of the main in-store offer is made.

F&F centre stageBeyond the long run of checkouts and self-serve tills lies the store’s main merchandise action. And centre stage is F&F. The model here was piloted in the Pitsea and Woolwich Extras at the turn of the year and this one has the characteristic ‘floating fascia’- a suspended banner that runs around the perimeter of the large mat that houses the F&F offer. It’s a measure of the importance of the brand to Tesco that, while the bulk of the non-food offer runs out from the right-hand perimeter wall, the decision has been made to put F&F clothing in what is debatably the most visible part of the store.

To the left of the F&F department there are aisles of ambient goods, leading to the wines and spirits area, which is set along the far left-hand perimeter. To the right, and foregrounded as in the new “super-convenience” store in Chelmsford, there is fresh, which in this store translates pretty much as fruit and veg.

Continue to the rear of the store and the ‘warmed-up’ ambience is apparent in the fresh food counters -fish, meat and deli - each of which is what might be termed ‘woodtastic’, given the amount of cladding that has been applied to the frontages.

Other noteworthy elements include a Phone Shop, which does look a trifle utilitarian, although perhaps that’s the point, and a new-look cafe at the front of the store.

Sizing up the offer

Overall, the navigational signage is simple, meaning that finding a way around is straightforward, even allowing for the relatively high-sided aisles.

This is an exercise in getting the maximum number of categories into a space that is somewhat constricted by Extra standards, yet there is no sense of the aisles being crowded or merchandise shoehorned in.

It is a store that stands like a beacon on the edge of this large town. Howell says that a lot of those who have been employed in the store were long-term unemployed and the opening of a shop on this scale is therefore a shot in the arm for Sunderland.

But perhaps what this store really demonstrates is that Tesco has taken the revamping of its estate very seriously and that it matters little whether shoppers end up in an Express or an Extra store, the environment will be more or less the same.

The test by which the name over the door is removed and the shopper is asked to name the retailer would be passed with flying colours in the majority of Tesco stores as things stand. The days when this was a retailer with overly functional interiors already seem a distant memory.

For Sunderland’s shoppers the arrival of this Extra is likely to mean the short hop by Metro from the town’s station to the Stadium of Light, where this store is located, being made more frequently.

There remain, of course, large and vocal lobbying groups that will spend days on end vilifying Tesco for what they perceive to be its empire-building tendencies, but this shop stands as proof that it can be a force for good.