Tesco Extra, Cradley Heath - 21st March 2015

A lovely day outside in Birmingham and decided that it's a good time to go shopping. My housemate Alice and I decided that we would go to the Black Country and review another Tesco Extra, but this time in Cradley Heath. This is a place that is familiar to me as I began my first teaching placemat in that part of the area.

So, what is the supermarket like? The criteria is as follows.

1. Clean - A supermarket built in 2007 and recently refurbished with two floors. It certainly looks clean with new signs and the supermarket looks bright, especially with the sunshine!
2. Friendly staff - yes, they had a welcome greeting and were treated to having my shopping being packed by the Scouts from Halesowen.
3. Aisle width - quite wide and can fit at least two trolleys side by side. The clothes section could be a little wider but as that's not as busy, that might justify the narrower aisles.
4. Everything I was looking for was in stock - Mostly. I was concerned about the lack of world foods, but that might be because of the area. A bigger area of concern is the lack of variety of eggs!
5. Extras: pharmacy/opticians/specialist food/petrol station - A large petrol station is available offering unleaded petrol at 109.9p per litre which compares favourably to nearby supermarkets in Birmingham and the Black Country. A pharmacy is also available but no opticians. There's a large clothing section and electricals too. However, it lacks a big enough section for world foods - just two aisles, and the specialist stock just consisted of East Asian and Polish foods. There's also a section which offers Community Space and a Costa cafe is available. If you were looking to dine there for lunch, you will need to go elsewhere. Finally, there's a good fishmongers, butcher, deli and hot foods section.
6. Fresh produce with long sell-by dates - Yes. There is a section of reduced goods which offers good reduction of around 40% off. I didn't need to buy any reduced goods. All the goods I bought offered good sell by dates.
7. Opening Hours - Very good. Opens from 6am on Monday to midnight on Saturday and maintaining a 24 hour store. Sundays are open 10am to 4pm.
8. Speed of till-processing - all manned tills in service and a lot of self-service tills and scan as you shop tills. Didn't have to wait to long on a manned till - around three minutes.
9. Self-service tills available - yes, but decided to go for the manned tills.
10. Parking facilities - yes with a large car park with two floors. The first section is the overhead parking and you can go down one level for the covered car park. Despite peak time shopping (Saturday at 12:30pm), there was a good number of parking spaces available. What's more, it's free parking with a three hour restriction. However, the entry and exit to the supermarket could be better. It can accumulate quite a bit of traffic - would traffic lights or a roundabout solve this? It might do, but could potentially cause more traffic as there is another roundabout quite close by.
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 Tesco than in other supermarkets so you need to shop around!
12. Organic produce - available if you want them.
13. Cash machine or cash back - Tesco Bank cash machines are available outside. Tesco also offers cash back when you shop.
14. Pedestrian access - yes and are step free. Lots of zebra crossings too which makes it safe.

Overall, Alice and I came to an agreement that the supermarket has a good atmosphere and the layout looks good. It's bright as well but the EBI's will be to have a bigger world foods section and a better variety of eggs.


Also, this supermarket reminds me a lot of the Tesco from my hometown with most features being very similar.

Photo courtesy of The Local Data Company

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (-1 for lack of world foods, -0.5 for entry and exit to the store, -0.5 for lack of variety of eggs, -0.5 for a lack of facilities to have lunch / dinner at the supermarket)