Tesco, Spring Hill - Saturday 6th June 2015

Thanks all for waiting patiently for my next supermarket review. Now that we're back in school for the final seven weeks, I'm back in Birmingham to do more reviews!

Tesco Spring Hill is based in Hockley and quite near the Jewellery Quarter. It's a large supermarket, but doesn't quite fit the Extra category. How would it fare on a Saturday lunchtime?

The criteria is as follows.

1. Clean - Yes, clean.
2. Friendly staff - quite friendly. The checkout lady was okay but asked "Have you got a Clubcard?" twice even though I said yes the first time. The fishmonger was friendly and gutted my rainbow trout very efficiently!
3. Aisle width - generally wide for three trolleys in all sections. However, when stock is put out, they put the stock trolleys in the middle meaning that I have to wait for other customers to get past.
4. Everything I was looking for was in stock - Generally good. There was a good variety of stock available. Fishmonger was good - offering different varieties of fish - I bought the rainbow trout on promotion and it was fresh! World foods section was brilliant. I went to the Oriental section and they have refreshed it, offering many essentials which you can find in a Chinese supermarket. The 6-pack Vitasoy Soy Drink is cheaper than any of the Chinese supermarkets in Birmingham which is impressive. I had to buy that as it's one of my favourites! The frozen world foods section could be improved - many of the dim sums which were available before were not available! Oh dear... Vegan / vegetarian foods were plentiful with different varieties of milk and quorn foods section. Deli and hot foods section as well as a halal butcher. But no non-Halal butcher - cannot get the good quality spare ribs - guess I need to go to Cradley Heath for that. Eggs - lots of varieties available.
5. Extras: pharmacy/opticians/specialist food/petrol station - World foods / deli / hot food / pharmacy / phone shop and quite a big non-Foods section though the Clothing section was a little small. Cafe was available with fish and chips available on request. Though looking at the chips as I went past and the food they served to the customer buying the food didn't look that appetising - overpriced in my opinion. There's also a Brand Outlet - like a Pound store. Not that I needed anything there. Finally, there's also mini shops available at the ground floor opened by different entrepreneurs - including a hairdressers / nail varnish. There was a Caribbean takeaway but it wasn't open today. However, there were two taster sections scattered around Tesco. Library also available next to the supermarket. Petrol station also available with unleaded petrol sold at 114.9p per litre, compared favourably with Sainsbury's Northfield, though not as cheap as Asda Barnes Hill, which is 0.2p cheaper. However, Tesco have the Fuel Save scheme running.
6. Fresh produce with long sell-by dates - Yes! All the goods I bought have long sell-by dates for the week. There is also a reduced foods section with lots available, and some rotting. Hmmm.. not convincing that can be sold off.
7. Opening Hours - Very good. 6am Monday to 10pm Saturday. 11am to 5pm Sunday.
8. Speed of till-processing - Quick with lots of tills available, and self-service tills available.
9. Self-service tills available - Yes, though I didn't use this facility.
10. Parking facilities - 3 hour parking limit at a covered area in the ground floor. That is pretty generous and also easy to find a parking space.
11. Value for money - Generally competitive with it being part of the "Big Four" supermarkets. Their loyalty card offers the Fuel Save option and it has a petrol station! So that's good. It also has goods cheaper than the Chinese supermarket - trying to out-price them? The downside is - grapes are expensive - £2.50 a punnet?!?! That's more expensive than a greengrocers in Harborne and I thought £1.99 a punnet was expensive. I resorted to Market Value instead at £1.25 a punnet which is much more reasonable.
12. Organic produce - available if you want them.
13. Cash machine or cash back - Cash machines available and cash back is available should you need it.
14. Pedestrian access - yes and step free. From the car park, you will need to travel up the travelator.
15. Space ultilisation - Yes, it's used well.

In my opinion, Tesco Spring Hill is very good with many facilities available. Almost in my opinion the perfect supermarket, though it needs to offer more men's clothing. That's probably why it's not an Extra. But considering that it's a normal superstore, it's definitely very good based on that.



Photo courtesy of www.birmingham.gov.uk

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 (-0.5 for lack of men's clothing, -0.5 for lack of variety of Frozen World Foods - maybe I'm just too picky, -0.5 for stock trolleys in the middle of the aisles - is that really convenient for customers?)