Waitrose is New Forest’s best supermarket in a low-scoring week

The New Forest has its roots in the Doomsday Book when newly crowned William The Conqueror first proclaimed it a Royal forest, preserving it for royal hunts. The Nova Foresta has retained its regal connections ever since, becoming a core source of wood for the burgeoning Royal Navy throughout the eighteenth century, and eventually being given national park status in the early noughties.

Spanning roughly 290 square miles of Hampshire, the wider New Forest district is therefore a draw for tourists, who come for the hikes, camping and the area’s beautiful beaches. Permanent residents, who live in towns like Lymington, Totton, New Milton and Fordingbridge, tend to be more affluent than the national average, CACI notes.

The area over indexes for the demographic Mature Success (13.4% vs 7.2% nationwide), and Commuter Belt Wealth (15.2% vs 9.6%). While affluent, demographics are mixed, with the elder residents complimented by an above average population of younger private renters, with 10.2% of the populace classed as Tenant Renters, above the national average of 6.7%.

Those with more premium budgets would likely be pleased with this week’s winner, Waitrose, who’s 23,600 square foot Lymington store followed up Waitrose’ online success last week with a runaway score of 80. Despite being the smallest of this week’s shops, our shopper was impressed by its bright and well organised aisles, which contributed to a “hassle free” shop.

It was a Friday evening and availability could have been much better they noted, with both fruit stars and mangos out of stock. However, they were blown away by the “friendly” and “approachable” store partners who were always on hand to assist. The “well managed” store was the only supermarket to score full marks for customer service this week.

Tesco came second in what was a low scoring week across the board. It’s Card Avenue store in New Milton scored 72, despite having the most out of stocks of the week, with four. While our shopper initially struggled to find any store colleagues, when they did “they were very helpful” and happy to pull away from their tasks to help shopper locate several other items around the aisles. 

Asda’s Maynard Road store in Totton took third, with score of 64. It was extremely busy, leading to long queues at tills, noticeable gaps on shelves and “cluttered” aisles. However, staff were “engaged” and helpful. Especially those at the “very well stocked and attractive” deli counter.

Totton is also the location of fourth placed Morrisons, who’s Spruce Drive store scored a “disappointing” 52. Despite the best efforts of its “very friendly” staff, who went out of their way to greet and help our shopper and her young child, standards were the issue. A lot of out-of-stock items “made the shelves look unattractive and quite empty”, especially in the fruit and veg section which was strewn with empty boxes and wrappers.

Well off the pace, and the pack, was Sainsbury’s Ringwood superstore in Ringwood, with a poor score of 40 out of 100. Bad luck could account for some of that score, with 12 of the selected 33 items in this week’s basket seemingly not currently stocked by the store despite its 51,979 size.

However, it was the shopper’s mixed experience with staff that really detracted from the experience. Some were excellent, helping our shopper with queries. However, several members of staff on the shopfloor were chatting with colleagues and “did not appear to be doing any work.” Our shopper had to navigate several abandoned restocking cages and encountered several messy and empty shelves during their visit. “Sadly, my abiding memory of the store was poor product availability,” they noted.