Free “Grocery-Grab” At Fair Supermarket

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30530, 27 August 1964, Page 2

Free “Grocery-Grab” At Fair Supermarket

A common plaint of housewives buying the family’s food on a tight budget is that a £ goes nowhere. “A pound is spent in a few minutes in a grocery’ shop,” they tell husbands inquiring where the money “has gone.”

On Saturday morning at the I.G.A. supermarket in the National Food Fair, one woman will be given two minutes to collect as many groceries as she can —for nothing.

The management of the firm has calculated that a housewife with good shopping sense will be able to collect £3O worth of groceries, even though she will not be able to take more than two of any one item.

Many housewives tend to be bewildered by the superabundance of groceries and tiie enormous number c-f "specials” when they enter a supermarket However, the woman shopper chosen to have two minutes free grabbing will be allowed to look round the food fair supermarket before she begins. In fact she will be allowed to choose £3O worth of free groceries before taking part in the “grab.” Impersonal Service Twelve housewives interviewed in Christchurch yesterday all said that one of the ways in which supermarket shopping appealed to them was in the impersonal service given.

“You may be bombarded with advertising in the supermarket, the newspapers and on the radio and TV about buying ‘specials’ and ‘bargains,’ but it is all impersonal. No assistants come up to you and press you to buy so-and-

so,” one woman commented.

“It does not matter if you have lost your list, or are in a bit of a daze in a supermarket. Nobody comes up to you and offers to help you choose—you can take as long as you Like, and buy as little as you like without interference,” said another housewife. Seven of the 12 women said, however, that they were inclined to spend more than they intended to in supermarkets. “The ‘specials’ are often three items of a total cost lower than the three things bought singly—so you buy three,” one explained. Useful Trolleys Eleven of the housewives interviewed had young children and all said that they found the grocery “trolleys” with seat for toddlers a great help in shopping in supermarFive of the 12 said that they appreciated being able to buy more than groceries,

i meat and sheets were instanced, in supermarkets. “When you have young children, the more you can buy in one place the less you have to go from shop to shop and this is a boon in both time and strength. Shopping can be very tiring, no matter what men say,” one woman said. All 12 housewives admitted being attracted by bargains and said that they would go to a different supermarket in the same centre if one was advertising a particular ‘special’ that the other was not. Economy “Groceries still cost an awful lot ( in spite of bargains and specials. You can save a few shillings a week by reading the advertisements,” said a housewife who buys for a family of eight

Ten of the women interviewed said that shopping in supermarkets could be done speedily. There was some criticism of “bottlenecks” at the check-out counters on Fridays when the supermarkets were very busy, but. all the women mentioned the good service of putting groceries in cartons or big paper bags for easy carrying.