Coles' new look

As with almost every topic I choose to write about on this blog, I discovered bits about today's topic that hadn't occurred to me. Even if they should have. So Rosemary's Rambles is perhaps a good title for the blog. Not to mention that rambling around a supermarket, as you know, is one of my very favourite things to do.

Of late, however, it has been a slightly frustrating process rambling around our local Coles, because, now finished, they have been basically reorganising the entire store. Large sections of the store now look like this.

Initially they boarded up the 'Bakery' and the 'Deli' and promised exciting new versions coming soon - well soon was identified as several months away. Then new chill and freezer cabinets began appearing around the walls with tantalising descriptions about all the mouthwatering things that were coming - desserts was one of them I seem to remember - always 'soon'. Then other parts of the store started being boarded up, shelves and the products on them were shifted, - almost every day it seemed at one point. It all became a not so magical mystery tour. If you were in a hurry it would have been really, really annoying.

All we customers started grumbling at each other about not being able to find anything although the staff had obviously been trained, not just on where things were, but also in being friendly, sweet and informative. I used to wonder whether they had a meeting at the beginning of each of their shifts, to learn what had moved that day.

Eventually things seemed to settle in one place - although not always - and simultaneously - and this is curious - the staff seemed to be less sure about locations - even though printed location lists arranged alphabetically appeared at the end of each aisle. Although you would not have found a specific item on there - for example David's malt that he puts in his bread mix. It was just categories - which really is fair enough.

I think my local Coles has now finished all of that, and so we are probably all now becoming more familiar with the new layout. And if we are honest, supermarkets are always changing the location of their products, sometimes hugely, sometimes in a very minor way. Enough to keep you wandering out of a set route, so that you discover new things you may be tempted to buy. This, however, was a major relocation. Eggs, for example have moved from one end of the store to the other.

During the process - and it lasted several months - I'm guessing around six - they must have lost a fair deal of customer goodwill. Eltham has all three major supermarkets in a row, and during the realignment I'm guessing several may have emigrated to the other two, with perhaps some, never returning. That training of the staff to be helpful and smiling all the way through would have been vital.

Obviously there must have been a major cost/benefit analysis carried out before this was implemented - and I'm guessing it is being implemented in almost every store - it has certainly happened in another nearby Coles. So a cost of millions balanced against the savings - I will come to that - and the loss of customer goodwill.

Why are they doing it? Well from the business point of view it will save them huge amounts of money spent on energy:

“This initiative reduces our refrigeration energy consumption by more than 20% and helps Coles achieve its sustainability ambitions.” Coles Spokesperson

All three major supermarkets have net zero targets and they are indeed working towards that in all manner of ways, from replacing their lights with LED globes, to solar power on roofs - I'm sure they have countless such measures, and doors on the chiller and freezer cabinets is one of them. Indeed 7 News reported, back in 2023 that

"Refrigerant gas leakages represent Woolworths second largest source of emissions following electricity." Amy Sinclair/7 News

and that: "More than 90 per cent of new Coles supermarkets use natural refrigerants"

So that cost/benefit analysis must have shown that in spite of the huge installation cost, the ongoing savings would have been greater. The big profits would pay for the installation, and that outlay would subsequently be rewarded with massive savings. I have no idea whether their economic analysis was/is correct.

Not to mention of course, the ability to be able to say they are good environmental citizens.

So what is the end result? Well here I stress that first of all I only speak for myself and only about one particular store. Overall I am impressed although I am still not absolutely sure where everything is. But then I like to ramble. Overall the store seems more spacious - and larger, which may be my imagination. As far as large goes it is absolutely my imagination because the store is still the same size. However, those cabinets take up less room than the previous meat and dairy cabinets, which had a low section that protruded out into the corridors. Also the deli and bakery sections are slightly smaller, although they still seem to have the same number of items.

Both the deli and the bakery used to take up almost half - the deli more than that - of the depth of the store. They are now much more compact, and I gather they are now not staffed after 8pm. - indeed haven't been for some time. Indeed apparently some supermarkets are discarding the manned deli altogether. Why:

"Across most supermarket departments, wages amount to run at about 8-10 per cent of sales, but in deli counters it’s 20-25 per cent of sales.  It takes a lot of staff to set up the case, shave the meat, put out the barbecue chickens, cut the cheese and fill the olives. And if you start shaving a piece of meat you really only have 24 hours before it gets dry and is thrown out but if its pre packed it can sit on the shelf for weeks. Also with pre packed food you don’t need skilled labour – any night fill person can put cabana and bacon on a shelf but you need a level of training to be in the deli.  There is not a lot of margin in the deli so they can be really tough to run at a profit.” Professor Gary Mortimer/News.com (2020)

For me there are minor irritations - e.g. there are now three widely separated cheese locations - not counting the aforesaid deli. There is one for the top end stuff - imported French brie, Meredith goat's cheese, etc.; one for the middle-range - the Australian brie and camembert, the higher end cheddars, and so on - and then there is the low end - cheese slices, the cheaper cheddars, the cream and cottage cheeses - the cheese you use every day. I'm still not sure truth to tell which is in which, but I'm sure that Coles is happy that I walk past a whole lot of other stuff on my way to find what I want.

What about those doors? At Coles all perishable goods, except fresh fruit and vegetables - with the exception of those packets of salad items - is now in a cabinet with doors - meat of all kinds, fish, dairy, cakes - I'm sure there is more - and all the frozen stuff too. For me this is actually quite good, although many people grumble about having to open and shut them. They even complain that it increases congestion in the aisles - in that you can't reach around someone dithering over which packet of meat to choose, very easily. Possibly true, although so far I have not encountered this problem.

At this point in my rambles around the net I found a couple of things that I had not thought of.

Firstly, Woolworths - at least a few years ago when they started thinking about all this and experimenting here and there - below a Brisbane store - put their fresh fruit and vegetables behind doors too. Now I don't like that, although Iif I'm honest I'm not really quite sure why. It just seems soulless somehow. Better than putting it all in packets however.

Secondly, and I feel a little ashamed that I didn't think of this - there has been a lot of negativity about access for the disabled. I also confess I don't - or didn't at first sight - see how access was any more difficult than before for the disabled. If you are in a wheelchair you are never going to be able to reach those top shelves, or the back of the cabinet. Indeed if the top shelf is half empty and all that remains is at the back, then I can't access it either. But it's not a problem - there is always somebody friendly - and taller - who can reach and get it for you. Such interactions with other people make shopping a much more pleasurable experience. Not being able to reach the back of the cabinet is less of a problem now as the shelves are much shallower. I suspect that the doors are a slight problem for wheelchairs, but maybe more of one if you have a walking stick. And a tiny bit more time-consuming for the rest of us.

However, today you don't have to go to a supermarket at all to do your shopping. You can do it all online, and get it delivered, thus, dismissing the need to go to the shops at all. Not everyone shares my love of shopping - and this also employs the previously displaced checkout chicks who now collect all your shopping for you. I wonder if they have to be tall?

Thirdly - and this has invoked a whole host of mildly humorous comments on chat sites - the chill factor to the public at large is now lower. Remember when you tried to be quick in the dairy and meat aisles because they were so cold? No more. Now it's good in winter, bad in summer if you need to cool off.

I was actually surprised when doing the 'research' for this post not to be able to find anything much about it, certainly not in recent times. You would think there would be loads of people up in arms about the whole thing, but then maybe that's all happening on social media - which I don't use. I found a couple of newspaper articles but dating back to 2020 and 2023, and even Coles had nothing on their website, although you would have thought, that if they used the right marketing language they could make this into a very positive thing. In Eltham, Woolworths and Aldi show no sign of moving in this direction. Given that that experiment by Woolworths in Brisbane was dated 2020 you would think they would have acted upon it by now. Or maybe their process is taking a different geographical route to Coles.

As for those people who say it's yet another way the supermarkets are making shopping a more soulless experience I would claim the opposite. I'm sure that during this process I have had more random conversations with fellow shoppers on the topic and then on to other things, than I have had in a long time.

The times they are a-changing. Something else will happen soon.

YEARS GONE BY

June 8

2024 - Cobblers - anything goes comfort food

2023 - Pretty in pink - and green

2022 - Nigel Slater's pies

2021 - Ancient is modern

2020 - Deleted

2019 - Why I didn't buy this cookbook

2018 - Salt and pepper on the table

2017 - Nothing