The one in my old home town bristol bs31 was so good it closed earlier on the year. It was always empty - both of produce and customers as they all knew it was awful. If you did happen to have the audacity to try and buy something you were met with what can only be described as complete indifference as to whether you giving them your custom or not. Years ago I lived nearby and for some reason that escapes me now, boycotted the shop. The convenience style one in bristol bs4 Has issues- any more than one customer at a time causes complete panic within the staff who have to stop staring into the middle distance and try to work out how to use the till resulting in a queue that can only be dealt with by dumping your shopping basket in the aisle and shopping somewhere else. A friend in bradford on avon no longer shops at a convenience style co op as he feels the price labelling on offers is misleading and resulted in a small argument with the management if the store. Apart from that, keep doing what your doing, you've got it bang on ......
Availability was always hit and miss due to how well the store was managed ,now we have introduced our SMART system that orders the stock regardless and dosent let the orders be amended down as they use to or not order at all as a morning gap scan had not been done. Prices on rear basket products are being reduced and our promotions are as good as the supermarkets. Regarding quality ,our fresh food is fantastic and comes straight from our own farms where possible.
our local ones, Crosshills and Silsden are both very good, clean and wellstocked with good people, some good offers, but generally I shop at Tesco's as overall they are cheaper...
People still use them because they are (generally) in a very convenient location so the slightly higher price is often offset by the extra cost of travelling further just to save those few pence. That's how I look at it on holiday, I go to the nearest shop 3 miles to Co-Op or 5 miles to Morrisons may make Co-op the cheaper option if using my van I've not been in our local one for well over 6 months now, as I was disheartened by lack of availability, but this may have improved. Good to hear they might be looking at pricing, as it is noticeable that the big supermarkets are slashing prices ATM. I agree about their produce - usually top and way better than Tesco!
Its not like that near us ,but thats not good at all ,I think the staff training and HR are very hit and miss but thats not my department.
the key issue, for me at least, are the hidden costs incurred in order for the bigger chains to compete.....Producers are tied into contracts that are difficult to extricate themselves from if their principle buyer demands a cost reduction, or an increase productivity for the same price....whilst we're all rejoicing at the fact that tomatoes are three pence cheaper at Asda, behind the scenes, smaller producers are going out of business, larger agro-businesses are grubbing out hedges to increase field size, and applying pressure on MAFF to change the criteria for permissible limits on pesticides....but Hey! Three pence is three pence Right? I've not even mentioned the implications for off-shore producers, and the loose interpretation of environmental legislation labour laws, transport and storage.....there's a lot more to it than meets the eye 'The market' does many things well, but if you apply this tenet to food production without appropriate checks and balances, we all suffer the consequences in the longer term...
That's the normal thing of wanting something for tuppence, and who cares if your neighbour down the street loses their job because their employer had to offshore the work to be competitive on price....
In Leeds we alwaysed shopped at the co-op ,we had no car in our house ,so it was normal ,all the community also shopped there ,one row of shops ,co-op ,post office,butchers and fish and chips ,off licence, all you would ever need in life... THEN Tesco opened ,we needed more stuff ,back went the rented TV and most of the things we thought were out of our reach and co-op was avoided... We have coop`s in France ,but pronounced coooope ,they are owned by a major chain supermarket ,we just get the odd items we run out of... Businesses run on a shoestring here ,my daughter did a work placement in the local village ,the earnings per day was 56 euro, 62 euro etc ,how do you live on that? it was`nt even profit ,just goods sold...
We have a coop and a sainsburys near ish to work, both similar travelling time away. I usually pop out and grab the food but can't bring myself to use the coop very often. Everytime I go in I leave feeling ripped off. The range and quality are ok. But it's just so expensive and often the items are smaller than the big supermarket equivalent. I prefer aldi but it's further away
My favourite french cooperatives are the wine ones- one at Saumur for Saumur champigny and maybe some crement de Loire and then off to La Chablisienne at Chablis funnily enough. I'd like to travel the Loire from Sancerre to the coast drinking myself into a stupor.
