Programmed shopping Plan your weekly travel to save grocery funds

Press, 2 August 1983, Page 12

Programmed shopping Plan your weekly travel to save grocery funds

Consumer watch

Anne Ingram

How planned are your grocery shopping trips? If you go out to shop most days and travel by car, you will be adding significantly to the cost of any items bought.

By restricting your grocery shopping to only once or twice a week, you can reduce these added costs to a minimum. The annual cost of fuel used in shopping for food in New Zealand is about $70,000,000 (1980 costing). This represents about three cents of fuel for each dollar’s worth of food purchased. To this should be added the total operating costs of running a car. The Ministry of Transport estimates this to be five to six times the fuel cost, depending on the size and annual mileage of the car.

On this basis, the total transport cost to the customer represents about 17c per dollar’s worth of food purchased. Obviously if one trip a week to the supermarket is made as opposed to five trips a week, the transport cost per dollar’s worth of food is greatly minimised. A survey carried out last year by Drs Mary Earle and Murray Patterson of the Food Technology Research Centre, at Massey Univer-

sity, looks at the grocery shopping habits of New Zealanders. Almost 700 customers at eight selected shops in Palmerston North were interviewed.

The shops included two supermarkets, two butcheries, one grocer, one dairy, and two greengrocers. Each shop was chosen as being typical in terms of turnover for their category. The authors of the survey consider that the sample taken is probably representative of the national situation.

They found, as would be expected, that shopping for food is mainly undertaken by females (79 per cent of the sample). The over 60-age group tended to shop mostly at the local grocery while the 20 to 50 age group, if mobile, preferred to shop at the supermarket. It was suggested that older people chose to shop at a local grocery because their food requirements are generally smaller than a family household, and also because many do not have access to a car.

Those in the lowest socioeconomic group were also most likely to shop at the local grocery because their access to transport was restricted.

These people then, who would most benefit by the more competitive supermarket prices, end up by paying more for their groceries, unless they happened to live near a supermarket. However, the average distance to a supermarket is considerably further than the average distance to a local grocery, according to the report. The authors claim that car usage is a major component for women shopping. Yet it was found that many housewives tended to travel shorter distances to shops. This again, was attributed to their lack of access to motor vehicles.

Shoppers with family re-

sponsibilities and therefore large food requirements, who did have access to a car, were more willing to travel longer distances to obtain the supermarket specials. In their case, the extra cost of travelling could be offset by cheaper prices especially when large quantities were purchased.

The survey revealed that although the supermarkets, butcheries, and greengrocers had shoppers from a mix of socio-economic backgrounds, the dairy had a proportionately higher representation from the higher socio-economic groups.

More males were also reported as being customers at the dairy.

Males were shown to be more energy-intensive shoppers than females, that is, they used more energy for each dollar’s worth of food purchased — overall, 59.7 per cent more than that used by females. This is apparently because men tend to buy smaller amounts of food each time, and often used more energy-intensive motor vehicles.

The busiest shopping day was found to be Thursday, with Friday close behind, and the quietest shopping

day was Monday followed by Wednesday. It was on these quiet days that the energy intensities were highest. Although the same distance was travelled, fewer items were bought thereby making the cost of the trip proportionately more expensive. That many people try to reduce car usage is shown by the fact that shopping trips were rarely found to be single-purpose. Only 30 per cent of those interviewed said that their sole reason for the trip was a visit to that particular shop. Visits to the grocers, butchers, and greengrocers were often combined in the one trip. However, with shopping trips to supermarkets and dairies, these were often the only shop visited. Many shopping trips were made in conjunction with travelling somewhere else, to a recreational activity or to collect the children from school or preschool. In good weather conditions, visits to a shop were more often associated with other purposes, such as window shopping or meeting people. It- was- only in bad weather conditions that shopping trips tended to be more single purpose and made of necessity.