Morrisons is best supermarket in high-scoring Bournemouth shop

In many ways, Bournemouth is the quintessential British seaside town, known for its long, sandy beaches and seaside promenade crammed with beach huts, cafés, arcades and more. But it’s also a town on the up, keen to shake off its blue-rinsed image.

Bournemouth Airport is being redeveloped to the tune of £50m to create greater capacity as part of plans to boost the region’s transport links. And in October, global financial leader JP Morgan Chase announced a £300m-£350m investment in Bournemouth to modernise and expand the firm’s corporate campus into “a world-class technology hub”, alongside a £3.5m philanthropic commitment to boost local skills and career opportunities.

Coupled with nearby Christchurch, a quieter, more historic riverside town just a short drive away, boasting bountiful old-world charm and independent shops and cafés, the area features a particularly strong “affluent homeowner” presence according to CACI and “significantly under‑indexes in more deprived segments.

The supermarket options in Bournemouth and nearby Christchurch are broad. But we had to spread the catchment to Verwood (which has a Bournemouth postcode) to include the nearest Morrisons. And the 36,392 sq ft store on Chiltern Drive emerged victorious.

In an exceedingly tight week, the store’s score of 78 edged out Waitrose by one point and Sainsbury’s by two. Our Morrisons shopper praised the “bright, tidy and well presented” produce displays, and said that “what sticks in my mind most is how fresh everything looked”.

He also mentioned the “good signage”, the bakery area that “smelled great” and said the “well-run” store “felt clean and organised”, with “approachable staff on the shop floor rather than people just restocking”.

Beaten despite posting the week’s best showing on availability, the 25,018 sq ft Waitrose in Christchurch “looked slightly run down from the outside”, but our shopper praised his “good interactions with staff and their helpfulness and humour”.

He also found it “easy to find what I needed”, although an issue on the checkout may well have proved the difference between first and second, with shoppers having to wait for someone to help an inexperienced staff member when the system was not working as intended.

Third place went to Sainsbury’s in the Castlepoint Shopping Centre on the outskirts of Bournemouth. The 46,291 sq ft store was let down by one item being out of stock and two not stocked, but our shopper liked the “quiet” store, which made it “easier to move around”, even if the layout “doesn’t flow as well as it could”. He also praised the “very helpful” staff on the shop floor but had less luck on the checkouts, where “only around half” of them were in use and, out of four staff members, only one “seemed alert and attending to customers quickly” while the other three “were chatting rather than paying attention”.

Less than a couple of miles away, Tesco on Riverside Avenue finished fourth, with our shopper praising the “wide and varied range of goods” and remarking that “it’s good to have a café” onsite. Staff were plentiful but not overly helpful, while the “best thing” about the store was “being able to park easily” and “navigate the store without issue” thanks to the wide aisles.

However, our shopper was perturbed by “having to queue at the checkout when there were many unmanned ones”.

Asda came last with 69 points, just nine behind the winner. Another sizeable supermarket, at 52,479 sq ft, and like Sainsbury’s in the Castlepoint Shopping Centre, our shopper was impressed by “the size of the store and its range of products”, as well as “how quickly I managed to locate the majority of the items”.

However, she bemoaned the “very poor availability in the fruit and veg section” and that products were “grouped by range rather than type”, making them more difficult to find. For example, she said “organic garlic was with organic veg rather than other garlics”.