Co-op

This co-​op looks small from the outside but inside its rather large, they sell a wide range of products like magazines, fruit, veg, frozen food, fresh bread/​cakes and all the normal tinned foods and jars.
They also sell books, toys, garden furniture in the summer, quilts, gifts.
You can also buy electric, gas, pay your tv licence and get mobile top-​ups.
The staff always seem to be rushed off their feet as it is a busy store but they will help you if you ask.
There is a small car park just to the side and back of the shop and a cash machine outside.

I like the Co-​Op because this branch was so local that it was ideal to pop in and grab eggs or milk when I’d run out. It’s quite a large supermarket by Co-​Op standards and sells a good range of everything.
This branch is laid out in an orderly and straightforward manner, I find I do not have to hunt items down as I do in other branches of the Co-​Op I visit. The fruit and veg section is excellent, I was surprised the first time I really took any notice of this area because they sell as wide a range of different fruits as our local Tesco (although perhaps not quite so many different apples and pears are available!), and definitely have more to choose from than the naff grocer down the road!
This supermarket is big enough that you could do a full weekly shop in here, although the prices would prevent me doing so. The only department I think they are lacking in is the baby items as they have only dedicated one short section of the aisle to nappies, baby milk and food, creams and juices — the staples of my home life at the moment! Quite often there are only two or three choices of size in the nappies and they regularly are out of stock of the larger sizes, my daughter is in a size 5 nappy and often this Co-​Op stops at size 3 — unlike the Co-​Op round the corner which stocks a full range of both Huggies and Pampers.
The freezers are along the back wall of the supermarket and although there isn’t much space this branch has picked out the choicest items to stock that people are most likely to want to buy; of course chips, frozen ready meals, vegetables and ice cream are available as well as many other items that we all buy week in week out. I’m not keen on their chiller section as they seem to concentrate on Co-​Op own label foods whereas I would rather see Bernard Matthews ham and Ginsters pies.
Bread and cakes are plentiful in this branch, as well as some freshly baked baguettes, French Sticks and cobs. All of the freshly baked items are delicious and I would often buy a large cheese twist to eat in the car on the way home — wonderful!
The staff in this branch are really nice, most of them have obviously been here for years and have got to know a lot of their customers well. This is nice to see because it makes this supermarket feel like a real community hub, I wasn’t a regular enough shopper in there to really get to know any of the staff although I was secretly pleased when one woman worker got to know my brand of fags and even kept me the last copy of Heat as she remembered I always went in for it after picking the kids up from school on a Friday!
This branch of the Co-​Op is scrupulously clean and I’ve seen members of staff mopping the floor when there has been a spillage. The baskets which the fruit and veg are displayed in are spotless and so are the bread shelves, these areas will always tell you a lot about the overall cleanliness of a shop as they get crumby and dirty quickly.