Sainsbury's has announced 3,500 job cuts, mainly from the Argos chain it bought in 2016. The retailer said it planned to close about 420 standalone Argos stores by March 2024, although it would open 150 more outlets in Sainsbury's stores. Jobs will also go in the supermarkets with the closure of its delicatessens and fresh fish and meat counters. I thought the idea of super/hypermarkets was a 'one stop shop' where you could get all your provisions under one roof. It may be that I am in the minority, but personally, I prefer to see meat and particularly fish and seafood laid out and be served rather than aisles with pre-packaged stuff that may have taken days to get there. Many people her must feel the same since our nearest large supermarket was part of an Auchan (French chain) who have withdrawn from Italy due to losses and Conad (Italian) has only just refurbished the store after closing for a month. Unlike the old tired store with a very small fish counter and limited pre packaged meat and poultry choices, the new store has a large Fresh Fish/seafood counter, a well stocked butchers (including no less than 8 choices of large Prime Ribs of beef in a cabinet where they cut and trim a joint to the size and weight you want) whilst you wait) and a large Gastronomia (Deli ) Fresh local bread and the range and quality is excellent. Even the veg section has those 'misters' installed (common in UK but not something we have seen here before). The change has proved very popular as we went on a Monday morning and the footfall was on par with UK supermarkets, (something we have never seen except perhaps Saturday mornings which we tend to avoid) in all the time we have lived here. I suppose they must have done their research but I can't help but think it could lead to a further decline in their business as Sainsbury's was always one of the more expensive supermarkets and the USP was allegedly better choice and quality over the main chains and budget supermarkets but prepacked meat and fish on aisles and shelves and in chill cabinets makes them on par with Lidl and Aldi and is not my idea of 'quality'
Tesco closed their meat and fish counters last year - or closed them most of the time (I think Stairfoot was open Thurs-Sun or something the last time I went). Customers in supermarkets aren't getting their meat, fish and deli goods from the counter, but from pre-packaged items on the shelves. Customers who want the perceived better level of service/food are going back to dedicated fishmongers, butchers or farm shops.
Basically this. Everything that was available, in the main can still be available, but without the overheads of running it as a separate counter. There'll also be some elasticity calculations in there in terms of how much you save on labour closing these sections down and how much you can afford to lose in revenue to still make more money. It's a positive I think because it should give a boost to those who want to seek out dedicated specialists and fresher, higher quality food.
OK thanks for that. Interesting. I suppose the British public (at least those that rely on Supermarket one stop shops) are more concerned these days about price rather than choice and quality. We always bought our meat and fish from the Market anyway,-parked in Morrisons car park then the market then Morrisons for the rest... Barkers used to be pretty good and the best Barnsley chops we ever had came from there. The fish market was decent although nothing like the 70s when it was outside and there were dozens of stalls. Fish from supermarkets was always a bit Meh though! I remember Morrisons had a fish counter but their stock control and rotation was a bit suspect Bought some whitebait from there once and they were badly 'off' when we opened the sealed pack shortly after we got home.
I'd rather go to the market for fresh stuff like that, or an independent butcher, but I suppose I'm in the minority - that said, if I'm in the supermarket anyway, I probably would get pre-packed.
I particularly agree with the final paragraph in both quotes above . UK farm shops though IMO miss a trick, They could competed with supermarket prices but instead seem to charge premium prices. Our experience used to be that they were not always much , if any, better than the stuff on Barnsley Market. Here many supermarkets seem to treat the butchers, bakers, fish and deli as 'separate entities' inasmuch as the supplier chains are not as centralised. Some are even separate franchises of a local butcher/farmer where you pay them direct within the store rather than checkout although these seem to be dying out now although still supplying local meat/poultry . A Conad in Emilia Romagna will locally sourced produce as will Conads elsewhere whenever possible. Obviously certain things like certificated DOP Parma Ham come from Emilia Romagna but there are always local Crudo ham of similar quality available. Most of our fresh fish seafood comes from the local ports. We still have a van comes around once a week with fish bought that morning from the wholesale fish market at the port and a Fried fish/seafood van comes round on another day. Certainly in rural and semi rural Italy (less so in major cities in the North) food in Italy is an obsession. It is true that whilst the English often talk about the weather, the topic of conversation in Italy usually turns to food. One of the reasons we love it here
