Waitrose in Pontprennau is Cardiff’s best supermarket, finds mystery shop survey

Once the world’s largest coal exporting port, Cardiff has had many lives.

A £2.4bn investment transformed the former docklands area into Cardiff Bay, replacing coal, iron and tin exports mined from the valleys to the north with restaurants, shops, bars and accommodation. Financial services firms including FTSE 100-listed L&G and Admiral have established large bases in the Welsh capital.

Cardiff has received further investment from startups and university incubators keen to retain the skills of graduates from the Welsh capital’s universities. Last month, the UK government announced £160m in funding to develop the Cardiff Capital Region Investment Zone, which it said would attract £500m private sector investment and create 4,000 new jobs.

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However, investment to date has not reached every part of the city. Cardiff significantly over indexes for the ‘stretched society’ demographic identified by CACI. Some 35.2% of the population fall under this Acorn category, compared with the UK average of 19.5%, while the average £106 weekly household grocery spend places it in the bottom third nationally when compared with other cities and large towns.

In our mystery shop, however, it was the Waitrose store in Pontprennau, in the quiet and wealthier residential area to the north of the city that performed best, with a score of 83.

Helpful staff led to a near-perfect score for customer service. “Most staff members appeared ready to engage with customers who needed assistance,” reported our shopper. When faced with an ‘out of stock’ label for the sea bass fillets, the staff member at the fish counter took the time to find someone to scan the label and confirm that no more were available. “I really appreciated that,” our shopper said.

The fresh section was “impressively stocked with good quality produce” and products “neatly displayed” throughout. merchandising was “organised and relevant”, and the toilets were clean.

Just four points separated second and fifth place this week.

Down the A48 towards the city centre, Sainsbury’s came in second.

The 43,202 sq ft store provided a full basket and our shopper praised its intuitive layout. However, staff were not fully familiar with the store and products, initially telling our shopper that it did not sell single bottles of Huel and leading them to the wrong aisle for couscous. The store itself felt “tired and in need of updating in areas,” reported our shopper. “There were large areas of the floor at the self-scan check out area that were broken and covered by hazard tape.” Marks were also lost for “not clean and presentable” toilets.

In third place the 94,102 sq ft Tesco in a retail park to the north of the city was the second supermarket to provide a full basket. Staff were busy restocking gaps and attending to a spillage, but informed our shopper where they could find products, rather than taking them to find them. Some freezers were over iced, likely due to a door being left open and a couple of trolleys were stuck or wonky.

To the south in the regenerated industrial area near the Olympic-size swimming pool and ice-skating club is Morrisons, which came in fourth. The store, which overindexes with ‘luxury lifestyles’ and ‘established affluence’ shoppers, had “friendly” and “happy to help” staff and an easy layout. It lost points for availability, with two items out of stock and one not stocked, and for tills and checkouts. On Saturday afternoon, just one of the 14 manual checkouts was open, while only one colleague was running the self-scan area with “several people needing help at the same time having to wait”.

Five minutes from Morrisons on the other side of the A4232, Asda had the worst availability, with three items out of stock and five not stocked. “There were many gaps on shelves in numerous aisles; particularly in the vegetable aisles,” said our shopper. Staff were “easy to find” but “unhelpful”. One pointed towards the fridges when asked for help locating dry couscous, and another apologised as they were unsure if pak choi was stocked.