Morrisons, Edgbaston, Birmingham - 18th January 2014

Following on from my trip to Harborne, I wanted to go to another supermarket so that I can complete my week's shopping. I decided to head towards Morrisons in Edgbaston which is situated near the Birmingham Marriott Hotel and the Five Ways roundabout. It's also very close to the Tesco supermarket which is its main rival.
So, what is it like? The criteria is as follows.

1. Clean - yes, in general.
2. Friendly staff - they are okay. They kindly offered to pack but I decided I want to pack for a change! They also offered saving stamps which I declined.
3. Aisle width - very wide especially with the fresh fruit/veg area. They need it to be wide as it can be very congested there.
4. Everything I was looking for was in stock - Almost! Large range of fresh fruit/veg/meat/fish available. If you want to buy clothes, give this a miss as there are other Morrisons in Birmingham which offer this. It does however have clotted cream at £1.97 which is quite expensive. Nevertheless, if you want to buy something for Churchcentral Forward, clotted cream is available!
5. Extras: pharmacy/opticians/specialist food/petrol station - No petrol station, but it does boast a flower shop, dry cleaning facilities outside the supermarket and a cafe on the first floor.
6. Fresh produce with long sell-by dates - Yes.
7. Opening Hours - 8am to 9pm Mon to Sat. 10am to 4pm Sun. Disappointing really considering that the opening hours in Tesco Edgbaston are far superior,
8. Speed of till-processing - fast and efficient.
9. Self-service tills available - yes, though as the manned tills were not busy, it's better to head there.
10. Parking facilities - yes, three floors of parking, which is sheltered. The downside is that you are only allowed 2 hours free parking. If you want to eat a meal at the Morrisons cafe and then go shopping, it might be a bit of a time squeeze!
11. Value for money - part of the big four supermarkets, they do have quite a lot of special offers. Obviously, some items are more expensive in Morrisons than in other supermarkets so you need to shop around!
12. Organic produce - available if you want them.
13. Cash machine or cash back - two Barclays cash machines and they do offer cash back.
14. Pedestrian access - yes and step-free.

 Overall, I am actually quite disappointed with this supermarket. Although it does have a large variety of items in stock, it feels a lot smaller compared to the Morrisons in Rubery. As a new supermarket, I would expect it to be quite big but there's not enough land to build it on. Unless... they build another floor.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10