In 1924 the name Tesco appeared on the packets of Tea, How did they come to pick a name like Tesco. Jack Cohen was the founder of Tesco and its first Chariman was T E Stockwell. They tool the TES for Mr Stockwell and the CO from Mr Cohen, there for TESCO was born. The first store opened in 1929 in Edgeware and the first self service store opened in 1956 in Malden.

I live in Warrington and a new Tesco has just opened and there is currently a price war going on between the stores. I used to shop at Asda but now you have to pay in their carpark unless you spend so much on food.

So I thought I used to shop at Tescos when I lived in Altrincham at the Wythenshawe branch so I will tell you all about my store here in Warrington.

The Layout
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The car park is absolutely massive and I reckon it must be able to fit in around 1000 cars. It has disability car parking near the front of the store and also family car parking for famillies with children. Dotted all over the car park is what I can only describe as Bus shelters where you can park your trolley at the end without having to go back to the store and it is one of the only stores that I know that does not require a £1 for its trolleys

As you pull into the little road that takes you down to the car park there is a petrol station that is about the same prices as every other supermarket and here you can have the use of a carwash, jetwash and petrol and pay at the petrol pump.

The front of the store is very brightly lit and is just situated out of the town centre. There is a little under coverpart where there are trolleys designed for everyone. The traditional trolleys are on the left that are deep and for big shoppers. On the right are trolleys for famillies with baby seats in and trolleys for people in wheelchairs and also high trolleys which I use as I have osteoarthritis and if I had to bend into a traditional trolley I would never be seen again.

A
s you walk into the front of the store the customer service desk is there who will deal with any problems that you have. There are normally around 4 ladies here and to the left of that is the ciggie booth where they double up when it is busy and you can also do your lottery tickets here.

To the far left is the cafeteria. There are parking bays for you to leave your trolleys so no body can walk away with your shopping. You put a pound in these but these are returnable. This is very good as there is nothing worse than having to fight your way through to the cafeteria via trolleys. The food is sandwhiches, soup and salady things which most instore cafeterias are. The cafe is nice and clean with modern fixtures and fittings and is well staffed and reasonably priced.

The sections of this supermarket is well planned out. You then walk through some metal gates to get in the store which are always open. They have a selection of wheel chairs for disabeled customers along with mobility scooters that have large baskets on the front. This is something I have not seen in others, yes they have scooters, but not much space to put food on.

When you go into the store there is literature on your right about the Tesco clubcard and on Tescos other things such as house insurance, loans, mortgages etc etc but these are not in your face and no one is hounding you to get one.

Newsagency side
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There is a large selection of papers, mags and books that you can buy from here. There is something for the smallest member of the family to the oldest.

Homeware
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Now this just about covers anything that you would want to buy for your home, bedding, electrical, tvs, videos, duvets, pans, curtains. The list is so long I would not be able to name everything. I bought a toasted in here for cooking 4 rounds of toast at once and it only cost £10 and also a pair of bathroom scales for £4.

DVD/Videos
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Again there is a section that covers this and they have special offers on videos with christmas coming up which is very handy.

Mens Clothing
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This is situated at the front of the store and they do a wide range of different mens clothing starting with t shirts at around £2.50 and a pair of jeans at around £4. They also do socks and underwear and shoes and slippers and accessories.

Womans Clothing
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A large variety of ladies clothing is situated behind the mens including lingeries and shoes and slippers and accessories and coats, Trousers, skirts, suits, dresses, tops all at reasonable prices to fit everyones pocket.

Kids Clothing
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This is also near by and there is a good selection of clothes. I had a quick look at these and the prices also seemed reasonable. From baby stuff into Young adults clothes.

Toys
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At the back of these are the toys section and there is a massive range of competively priced well known toys. Again too many to mention but there were also teenagers bikes from £40 which is brilliant if you are on a budget and the child wants a bike for christmas. Now I cannot say whether the toy department is usally this big as it has just opened and is coming up to christmas.

Gift section
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This is on the left hand side near the back of the store and has a big selection of things from £2 upwards and there is something here that will suit everybodys price range.

PhotoProcessing
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You take your photos into this store and have them processed. If you are doing a big shop you literally can drop them off and pick them up on your way out.

Pharmacy
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Again here you can drop prescriptions off and pick them up on your way around the store. I think this is brilliant as it saves me having to go to the chemist, Now I can do it all in one run.

Mobile Phones
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They have a large selection of mobile phones which you can take a good look at before you buy.

BabyChanging and Toilets
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All of these are provided within the store. They are clean and tidy and inspected everyso often.

FoodHall
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I think the food hall represents around 2/3rds of the store and this store is absoloutely massive. I have never ever been into such a large store in my life and at first I thought I would get lost but now I have been there a couple of times I am getting the hang of where things are.

When you go into the food hall, there is a chicken delicatessen selling ready cooked chickens and sauages and a fish stall selling fresh fish and a freezer selling frozen fish. To the left of these stalls is a meat counter selling fresh meat and prepacket meat and also a cheese counter. I treated myself to some proper parmesean cheese and it was lovely. All the meat products were fresh and not a bit of brown to be seen in site. At the end of the section is a salad bar for people who want a quick salad. They were well stocked up on food and little plastic trays.

After this is the flowers section, all fresh flowers, I saw none that were dead and all were a reasonable price starting from around £1.99. A beautiful array of flowers. I did not spend to long there as I hate flowers. OK I have hayfever lol

The fruit and veg take up about 3 aisles and consisted of a well stocked grocery department. There were special offers and reductions on fruit and veg. All this seasons offerings were there together with some luxourious fruit, starfruit, butternut squash which I love.

Following through the store is all the tinned foods and cuboard food as I call it and here you can purcase pet foods and tinned foods, tea and coffee and almost anything you want to. All the shelves were very well stocked and the aisles are wide throughout the store so that every one can move easil
y.

At the end of this cuboard food section is the freezers, very well stocked up. Tesco have a lot of BOGOF offers on. (buy one get one free) and you can save a lot of money on these if you spend wisely. They stock well know brands of food as well as their value food.

Tesco Branded Food
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Their is a section which has the white cans in with the tescos blue lines through which is their tesco own value brand. This is a very popular section. At first I thought this was a bit naughty of them to put a lot of these goods together as people who have to budget head here. In fact I spoke to a member of staff who said on the contrary all this food is also placed around the store in its proper area togeter with branded food. The display was put there to show people what value food they carry. MMM I thought a good idea. This section you can buy beans, pop, crisps, soups, milk, rice pudding allsorts of things. I use this a lot as I have to work on a budget.

Kitchen Appiances
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At the top end of the store is the appliance centre where you can purchase well known brands of fridges/freezers/cookers/microwaves etc.

Tills and Staff
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There seems to be a lot of tills, I would say around 30 and there were no queues and this was at 1700 today which is peak times. All tills were staffed and I liked the way where they have two tills together so that when the girls are not busy they can speak to each other unlike Asda. The staff all wore blue uniforms and looked very smart and were very friendly.

I walked out of the shop and thought what a marvellous store. You can do so much in this store which would save you time, buying cookers, hoovers, towels, bedding, food, all under one roof instead of mopsing around a lot of little stores.

Would I recommend it?
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Yes I would to anyone as if you want Tescos to be expensive then you can buy expensive
food. However if you are on a budget like I am then it can be as cheap as you want it to be.

Today I bought the following:-

2lbs oven chips
bread
sausages
burgers
t bags
milk
slimmers milk
2 x tins beans
2 x tins peas
garlic kievs

This come to £4.70 and thought it was a bargain.

Well thats about my visit to my store today and I cannot wait to return to do my Christmas shop.

This is a 24 hour opening store which is great for me as I have this stupid urge when I wake up bored to go shopping. The only restriction is the sunday trading law that they close early.

Visit WWW.Tesco.com for further information

Karen :0)