Waitrose is best supermarket in Bristol mystery shop

Bristol is a city renowned for doing things a little differently. It counts Brunel and Banksy as two of its most famous sons, with the latter perfectly embodying the city’s socially conscious, activism-heavy image. Yet alongside its distinctive culture, history and creative energy, modern Bristol is also home to a thriving economy built around digital, creative and tech clusters and has the highest density of fintech startups and scaleups outside London.

The city’s two major universities bring a large student population, meaning Bristol overindexes on the ‘tenant living’ demographic, according to CACI. Meanwhile, Bristol Temple Quarter is among the UK’s biggest city centre regeneration projects and is expected to bring 10,000 new homes to the area. This should cater well to the “strong uplift” among “younger, affluent people with high incomes enjoying urban life” identified by CACI.

An economically mixed city, it over-indexes on both ‘thriving neighbourhoods’ and ‘stretched society’ according to CACI. The group in between, ‘steadfast communities’, is under-represented.

Lidl is comfortably the best represented supermarket in our catchment area with 14 stores; Aldi is second with seven. The discounters are included in this week’s mystery shop, but both had a week to forget, coming last and second-last.

The outlook was brighter for the city’s only Waitrose, located on Northumbria Drive a couple of miles north of the city centre, which emerged victorious with 84 points. Our shopper said the 18,208 sq ft store’s housekeeping was “of a very high standard” with store standards deemed “excellent” – though there was disappointment that the customer toilet was closed. The best thing, though, was the staff. They provided service that was “both helpful and made us feel valued as customers”.

Second place went to Asda on East Street, the most centrally located of this week’s stores. Our shopper said it was “well maintained, which must be difficult for such a high-volume location”. The 63,025 sq ft store also managed this week’s joint-highest score on availability. Our shopper praised the team for “doing a damn good job considering how busy it was and how unpredictable that area can be”.

Our shopper reserved special praise for a worker named Tanya, who “made good conversation” and “felt especially warm in rapport”. However, he criticised the store’s returns process and felt “some of the layouts could make a little more sense”.

Five miles to the north east sits Morrisons on Fishponds Road, which took third place this week. Our shopper praised “a great store with a good stock of affordable products” and was pleased that after she dropped a sauce “a team member immediately helped me clean it up”. Unfortunately, a terrible performance on tills & checkouts hampered wider efforts, with our shopper waiting more than five minutes to be served and noting the staff member “did not say hello or give a smile – he seemed annoyed”.

Tesco on Eastgate Road was fourth, despite posting the joint-best performance on availability. The store performed best on customer service, with our shopper describing staff as “very kind and extremely helpful”. However, it tanked on store experience, with our shopper noting an excess of pickers added “even more chaos” to an already busy store. The “worst thing”, though, was the layout, which “completely disrupted the flow of the shop and made the experience much longer and more painful”.

Sainsbury’s in the city’s upmarket neighbourhood of Clifton came fifth. It put in a strong showing on customer service and tills & checkouts, though performance was poor elsewhere. Our shopper found it “easy” to locate staff on the shop floor, all of whom were “friendly and helpful” and “happy to stop their current task and put customers first when approached”. On the other hand, the store “comes across as a little tired and in need of an update” and our shopper “particularly disliked the amount of litter and grubbiness of the floor, which gave a poor impression”.

Almost 20 points further back came the discounters. Lidl on Muller Road edged sixth place from Aldi by a single point, largely thanks to a superior performance on availability. Our shopper found the store “well laid out, well lit and well maintained” but found enough empty boxes left in situ “to be annoying” and lamented the apparently lean team leading to staff looking “visibly strained and uninterested in helping customers”, which “wasn’t particularly pleasant to see, as a customer”.

Last place went to Aldi on Crow Lane, which picked up 47 points. Just two of those came from availability, thanks to one item being out of stock and seven not stocked. Our shopper found the store easy to navigate with a “good selection of specials”. Staff were “friendly and helpful, although busy” and “were quick to say: ‘We don’t stock it at the moment’, rather than check”.