Fish & Seafood display

Source: Tesco

The supermarket is bringing in new signage and lower-level displays for fruit & veg, fish and meat aisles

Tesco is trialling a new layout for its fresh food aisles, as it looks to improve the shopping experience following its decision to scrap all its fresh counters.

The supermarket is bringing in new signage and lower-level displays for fresh products including the fruit & veg, fish and meat aisles.

Stores piloting the new layouts have displayed new signage under the banner The Fresh Market, which experts said was a nod to Morrisons’ Market Street proposition.

Hower, the move has also been compared with fresh food layouts at M&S and Sainsbury’s.

Tesco is understood to be keen to introduce new theatre into its stores after confirming in January it was closing its remaining 279 counters, having already axed 300 of them in 2019.

At the time it blamed the “significant decrease” in demand for food from counters.

However, Richard Wood, category director for meat, fish & poultry, said Tesco wanted to continue to improve the shopping experience for customers.

“We’re delighted to begin trialling new fish and deli areas in some our large stores, as well as introducing updated point of sale for meat and poultry aisle,” he said. “These areas will showcase new and improved products and offer customers a wide range of great value and great quality options for all occasions.”

Analysts pointed out that Tesco had a long way to go to improve the feel of its fresh food aisles compared with some of its rivals, but said new features such as the latest LED lighting was an improvement on what had gone before.

“This is very much a work in progress,” tweeted Bryan Roberts, global insight leader at IGD.