Ninety-eight points is one of the Grocer 33’s highest ever scores. What’s your secret? We have a very strong focus on the three basics: Clean, full and price. I’m very lucky to have a brilliant team of 300 colleagues who are on board with that.
I came to this shop in October and speaking personally, it has helped that prior to coming here I spent last year as a shopping trip coach supporting stores and managers across the region. Whether that be working shoulder to shoulder with them, or store ‘health checks’. The aim of the role is to improve customer perception across all areas of the shop.It opened my mind to see what a customer sees. I walk every aisle every day and bring my team with me too.
Tell us about the store? We’re in Fulbourn, a nice little village a few miles outside Cambridge. It means we have a diversity of shopper. There are major hospitals next to us and a bus stop, so we get a lot of professionals popping in for their essentials. We have a fair few students, but it’s mainly family shoppers. We’re a band B store, which is a big shop, around 50,000 sq ft.
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What is The Grocer 33 and how does it work?
What’s your biggest challenge as a store team? It can be tough running a shop this big. It’s essential that we are doing the right thing for the customer and prioritising the right things to make sure we are serving them. It’s complex, but at the same time it’s very joyful when you have an amazing, passionate team behind you who thrive to drive standards, quality, and availability. It makes a big difference to have them on board, and I am so proud of the work they do.
You have spent time managing stores in Brazil. What lessons have you brought back to UK retail? It’s my 20th year with Tesco, but I left the business in 2015 and spent two years working for my father-in-law who runs a chain of supermarkets in Brazil. How they run the shops, and how people shop, is completely different. They are much more connected to suppliers locally. Brazilians are also much more relaxed , and in a positive way, expectations are completely different. However, wherever you are in the world, retail is the same: serving customers better every day and making profits.
One thing I took from UK retail is how well we aggressively trade and shout about price. It was very a successful strategy for me.
Local residents reported issues with trolley dumping at this store last year. Has that been a challenge? It was before my time and it’s not a challenge now as we have a new system: when shoppers are done, they scan a QR code and someone goes to collect the trolley.
What work have you been doing to support the local community? We’re always helping local groups and charities with fundraising requests. Our community bookcase is a much-loved feature of our store. We run monthly initiatives linked back to the book case, which enables shoppers to support a different local charity each month. In the last nine months alone it’s helped us to raise £2,525. We also have a donation trolley where shoppers can donate toys or items to nearby hospitals.
How will you stay on top of your game? Availability is our huge priority, because that’s what our customers come for. We want to stay focused on maintaining our replenishment routines throughout the day, improving communication between teams and making sure our colleagues have ownership to make a big difference in their respective areas.
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