Who needs supermarkets?

I get a delivery from Tesco every month these days. I used to get groceries delivered by them more often, but it got so that the range of foods at Sainsbury, Whole Foods and Lidl was better - and I have the time to shop around in my retirement so I now go to the shops two or three times a week. I buy fresh fruit and veg from Whole Foods, not to mention treats like linguine with tomatoes and pesto, mac n cheese, frozen teriyaki tofu, avocados, mango and strawberry salad, ratatouille (though it is sadly lacking in onion, garlic and salt) and the occasional tub of soup. At Lidl I buy wine, baked goods and whatever veg and cold meat (usually Polish - which I love) they have on offer.

I should also say I buy clothes in Asda. Nothing would persuade me to buy food there - cheap n nasty are the words that spring to mind.

None of the supermarkets sell food in manageable quantities: it's all bogofs, which fill up my fridge and freezer but leave very little room for anything else. The problem is supermarkets haven't really adapted to the idea of the one person household. I hear all these crap ads on TV telling me 'it's all about you - it's all about you' and I just know that's a lie. Choice? How is there a choice when you're limited by what supermarkets dominate your local area? By how far you can travel? By the fact that they operate as a cartel, with the same prices being paid for every item in the shops. Whatever you call this it's not 'competition'.

I try in my small way to change supermarkets: they do regular surveys through polls run by agencies like Populus and I always mention how discontented I am with my local supermarkets. As far as I can see, the whole aim of supermarkets is to to keep increasing their profits for the shareholders year
on year. Common sense tells you that can't happen: you can squeeze wages, reduce food prices paid to suppliers and cut the range of food you offer but what you end up with is a poorer service that your customers won't like. If anyone has proved that it's Tesco. Mind you, M&S and the Coop are not far
behind.

Maybe it's time for supermarkets to accept that they just supply food.  Let's have a service. They don't need self-serve check outs - FFS, have you seen the queues? Forget the dry-cleaners, the shoe repair shops and the computer salespeople. They need decent fresh food. Quality meat and fish - in Scotland, that means Scotch lamb and beef and fish and shellfish straight from the sea. I honestly think we could live without exotic fruit out of season if we could just get the basics right.

Maybe our supermarkets need to accept that US ideas on how to run a business are fine but they involve a population of 300 million, whereas the population of these islands is 60+ million - and the way we do business has to be different.