Free Market

There's a new Sainsbury's in Summertown.

This brings the total number of supermarkets up to four in a very small area. There are now more supermarkets in Summertown than there are human hairs. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a reduced pasta salad snack or interrupting a mumbled tobacco request.

The choice is a difficult one. Do you go for price? For product diversity? For product quality? For basket design? For colour scheme? For bag policy? For Jamie Oliver dearth?

You can tell that the new orange kid on the block has caused the existing supermarkets to raise their game. They don't want to be defeated by this trolley-come-lately. In such a competitive market place, you can't get complacent. To quote Nigel Adkins misquoting Sun Tzu: "Never underestimate your opponent".

So, what did the competitors do?

The Tesco Metro put some banners outside. Or flags. Those tall, thin banner flags. What are they called? Flanners. Flanners are inspirational and celebratory. Mr Tesco is saying: "Shop with us or the Nazis have won."

They're trying to draw the eye away from the shiny new store with its fancy colours and lack of blood stains. The Tesco Metro is the proud veteran, sitting with legs dangling over the cliffs of Dover, shooting David Walliams with a sniper rifle and offering cut-price garlic bread.

M&S have tried to not show their fear. They have flags too, but I think these are for the jubilee celebrations. I didn't notice any explicit attempts to curry favour with the easily-swayed consumer. I suspect that M&S has such an elite clientèle that they don't care who they lose. In fact, anyone crass enough to shop at Sainsbury's is not welcome anyway. Anyone who's ever considered shopping at Sainsbury's is identified by the in-store telepathy drones and is taken into the back to be drowned in taramasalata.

But the biggest response has come from the Co-Op. Previously the worst supermarket in Summertown, they've pulled out all the stops.

The most obvious step they've taken is in rearranging their shelves. Previously, the shelves were organised in such a way that you could only navigate them by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs and Nicolas Cage. It was a maze designed by a madman. If you wanted to buy a smoothie you'd have to loop around, away from the checkout, past the salad, through the forbidden mists of Arakam-Shah, then take a turn through the condiment aisle and then feebly fish around for your money with shaking hands. By this time, you'd have drunk the smoothie and filled the bottle with any fluids that might facilitate a future cloning.

But now, things have changed. They've straightened everything out. Nice clear, straight aisles. More room (I think they've knocked through, demolishing the faun orphanage round back), more order, fewer Minotaurs.

But this isn't all. They've trumped the new Sainsbury's. They've killed it in the cot with two simple words:

salad

bar.

That's right. We have a salad bar, and nothing will ever be the same. Everything we thought we knew has turned out to be an apocalyptic underestimate of coleslaw.

The salad bar is a wonderful thing: healthy, colourful, varied, fun. It's like a playground. A creamy, crisp playground. I don't need an Xbox. I've got a salad bar box. The cherry tomatoes are beautifully rendered.

If I was Sainsbury's, I'd be quaking in my boots. All of their hard work may come to nought. The Co-Op have put up quite the defence.

It's a bit like that famous battle in a historic war that I should have specific knowledge of but don't. In fact, it's exactly like that.

What do Sainsbury's have to offer?

I don't know. I've only been in there once. They had balloons.

I should have done some more research.

They do have Pieminster pies there, which is something new. I haven't ever had one, but I bought one. It's a fish pie. It's called 'Pietanic'.

You know, like that famous ship that crashed and killed over a thousand people.

Mmm! Delicious!

I'm looking forward to trying some more of their 'Our Deepest SymPIEthy' range, including the spicy Dresden FirePie and the Princess PieAnna something something something

Huh. I assumed I'd be able to come up with some hilarious tragedy pies, but it didn't really go very well. The fact that one of the tabs on my web browser is currently showing the Wikipedia entry for the Dunblane school massacre shows that I might have been grasping at offensive straws.

Still, you can imagine what someone funny might have made of that!

Anyway, what are my conclusions about this four-way supermarket brawl?

I think it's too early to tell. I'll probably continue to spread my custom around. There's no need to make snap decisions (unless you have osteoporosis).

I'll see what each has to offer. Though the salad bar is a big factor in support of the Co-Op. And there's the whole 'ethical economics' thing too. Not quite as important as diced cucumber, but important nonetheless.

If any one shop really wants my exclusive attention, they should work on improving their loyalty cards. All of the shops have them already, but the benefits are obscure and intangible. I want a real loyalty card that rewards each visit with a melon that can predict the future. Or a free lighter.

That would keep me coming back.

I'll let you know if there are any further developments. For all I know, a fifth chain will throw their corporate hat into the grocery ring.

They might bring their own flanners. Or a larger salad bar.

That's the good thing about capitalism: everyone is crippled by choice, independent stores have no chance of survival, and our tenuous, fluctuating patronage is won only by flags.

God bless whatever country this. Competition makes the whole world angry, but we can have as many hard-boiled eggs as we can squeeze into a non-biodegradable tub.

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I like that. I'm going to finish all of my blog posts on the word 'tub'.

Tub.