A good supermarket but struggles to compete with the biger stores (Somerfields)

Member Name: tomo359

Product:	Somerfields
Date:	04/09/09 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good range of products, good layout of store, great own brand

Disadvantages: Some branded products are high priced, sometimes shelves not always fully stocked

In my town we have 3 main supermarkets and we choose to use Somerfield most often. It is on the edge of the town centre but has a decent size car park and is usually easy to find a parking space.

Somerfield has never been able to compete with the bigger named supermarkets such as Tesco and Asda, but it also can compete with the cheaper supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl so it is stuck somewhere in the middle.
Well actually we soon won't be calling it Somerfield, as it has been bought out by Co-Op (i'm not sure if all Somerfields have been bought out or just a few, but i know ours is changing as it is already stocking several Co-Op branded products on the shelves)

Because the store is smaller than many supermarkets, it doesn't always have all the brands you may want, but it does have most things you will need.

Our store has a generally good layout. It has two entrances, the main one is next to the car park. You start in the fruit and veg isle. This isle is actually one big isle with centre shelves, so it feels like two isles but is easy to get from one to another.
This isle also leads into meat and fish, ready meals, pies and pastries, yoghurts, cheeses and several other bits, so you can imagine this is a big isle.
The next isle mainly consists of canned goods, pasta and cooking sauces. The isle after this contains things such as coffee and tea bags, table sauces and condiments and baking items such as flour. At one end of this isle and the next isle is the baked goods section.
Somerfield should make a bigger deal of their baked goods such as bread and cakes as they are always so nice, and you can often get warm freshly baked bread if you get there at the right time. Here you can also get packet cakes and branded bread.
The next isle is mainly cereals, and biscuits and also has jams.
Then you get into the health and body care isle which contains healthcare items, hair and body products, toilet and kitchen roll, baby items, cleaning products and bathroom products.
The next isle is a weird one, it starts off with clothes washing products on one side. On the other side it seems to be something different each week, generally just a sale isle, sometimes it has summer bits on such as picnic items, other times it has chocolates, other times wines and spirits. It just seems to be what ever the store is trying to sell. Further down the isle has pet stuff on one side, and chocolates and sweets on the other side.
The next isle is drinks, mainly soft drinks and fruit drinks as well as waters.
The next and last isle is freezers and crisps. There are more freezers along one end of the store as well as down one side of this isle.
At the end of this isle just before you head for the tills is the alcohol section.

The store has quite a few tills, but only a few ever seem to be in use a one time. If you only have a few items you can go to the till near the exit which is where you can buy cigarettes as well as small food stuffs like sandwiches as well as magazines and newspapers.

Staff on the tills are generally really nice and some will have a chat with you as you pack, others can be a little quiet but still friendly.

Somerfield has several own brand products, the main one being their Simply Value range. These are very easy to spot as the packaging for any product consists of yellow and white. Its lacking in design but it stands out and makes you look at it which is the main thing. The only problem is things can come across as cheap which will put some people off.
Lately we have been trying several Simply Value range products and many of them turn out to be really good, the best product we have discovered so far is their hot chocolate. You get a large tub for less than £1 and its the nicest i have ever tried. They do many products in this range including frozen food, ready meals, canned goods, coffee, tea, soft drinks and water, crisps, health and body care items and many more things.
If you go to Somerfield but have never tried anything from this brand, then i recommend giving things a go, you could end up saving a lot of money by changing to the Simply Value range.
Another of Somerfield's own brands is their Best Ever range. This is not as popular but things such as ready meals can be found in this range and are usually cheaper than branded products and usually of good quality.

Prices on branded products in the store can sometimes be quite high depending on what it is, but they have many special offers on each week and if you look carefully you could end up saving quite a bit of money with many 'Buy one get one free' offers and a certain % off things.

The one thing that Somerfield can be poor for is fully stocked shelves, especially for products with a special offer. There have been many times when we see an offer we like so we go to get the product and find its gone.

We have been happy with shopping at Somerfield for over 8 years now so they must be doing something right, it will probably be a bit upsetting when Co-Op finally take over. As much as i like Co-Op, Somerfield has been my main store for years now and has always served us well.

Summary: A good supermarket which will soon be missed.