Asda’s happy and helpful staff carry it to Hereford victory

For a small city by the Welsh borders, Hereford has made its mark on the international food and drink stage. It’s synonymous with the red and white cattle breed and the home of Bulmer’s cider. Today it still boasts the largest alcohol container in the world, storing 15 million gallons of cider to the west of the city.

But with a rural and manufacturing-heavy economy, salaries are almost £5,000 lower than the national average. According to CACI it over-indexes most notably for “hard-up households” - younger families struggling on low incomes in rented terraced housing. This group makes up 13.1% of Hereford residents, compared with 7.5% nationally, though under-indexes for the even more stretched cash-strapped families.

Older residents are doing better financially with “semi-rural maturity” and “rural maturity” also over-indexing.

Every retailer competed well for the spend of Hereford’s 77,507 diverse residents, in a closely fought mystery shop with just 11 points separately first and last place.

To the south of the River Wye this week’s winner was Asda on Belmont Road. The 44,963 sq ft site picked up a score of 88, including maximum marks for accessibility, features and services, customer service, and tills and checkout.

“The store is really well maintained and the employees are really happy to assist at a moment’s notice,” commented our shopper. The only let down was on availability, with the little gem lettuce and gluten free pittas out of stock.

Behind by just one point, Waitrose packed a lot into its 15,699 sq ft store in the central Old Market retail development. A “beautiful and fragrant”  flower display made “a wonderful first impression” which continued into a “full” and “attractive” produce section. The BWS merchandising won further praise for “a real ‘wow’ factor which made me want to explore”. Waitrose just missed out due to long queues at the checkout with three customers waiting at each of the two open tills. Our shopper was pleased to see a third till opened, however.

Down the A465 in the Belmont suburb was Tesco with 84 points. Despite visiting the 40,392 sq ft superstore during “quiet hour” but it “didn’t feel that way,” said our shopper. The many online pickers tried to avoid causing an obstruction but there were so many of them competing for space with shelf stackers and customers that “it was impossible” and made it hard to access the chilled aisles.

Every member of staff paused what they were doing to help our shopper, however, telling them where to find a product or confirming on their device that an item was not stocked. The shop also won praise for an attractive ‘Taste of the Med’ promotion at the store’s entrance.

Around the corner from the Museum of Cider was Sainsbury’s with 78 points. Customer service ranged from “business-like” to “friendly”, with special praise for the “extremely friendly and efficient” staff member on the self-checkout. “They were constantly observing customers and immediately attending to any issues,” our shopper observed. “When they thought I was struggling to scan an item they smiled and asked me if everything was okay as they passed by.”

However the 45,575 sq ft store suffered from a some difficult-to-navigate categories, and a bottleneck in the lobby as customers ignored one door and used the same one to enter and leave the store. It also disappointed with an empty breakfast section in the hot food display unit at 9am, although other items were available.

Towards the train station Morrisons was let down by availability but scored a respectable 77 points. When asked for help staff smiled and offered assistance. They checked for additional stock in multiple locations and apologised when confirming that the crisps and San Pelligrino were indeed out of stock. Our shopper also suggested updating the signage. “They are incredibly confusing and mean you take about twice as long to get round,” they said.