Morrisons

I called in Rochdale’s branch of Morrisons, after looking at car dealerships in the area, this particular store is close to both Nissan and Skoda, as well as Kingsway Retail Park.
This store follows the traditional Morrisons layout, and is a little small but still can act as somewhere the average household can do their weekly shop, unlike the Asda store in Kingsway Retail park, which is fairly close to here.
One of my main reasons for visiting Morrisons was to check out their new gluten free food range, where some stores stock a sandwich, sausage roll and drink for £3, and even though I did visit on the evening, I did still expect them to have stock, however they didn’t. They did have a good range of sandwiches, but nothing gluten free from this offer, and after speaking to a member of staff it seems they never sold this range in store, as he was a little clueless to what I was looking for.
The range of other items is also poor, such as the freezer section. The layout I find is appalling, they seem to have mixed in all the gluten free foods, which can make it a nightmare to find them, especially when you have to walk down all the isles, looking at everything and what probably will contain gluten, it will also be harder to spot new products this way, and it is like Morrisons don’t know what gluten free is, and how serious it is, and just take gluten free pizzas to simply just be another standard brand of standard pizzas, and they must feel if we see the normal ones, we will buy them, but most coeliacs will not and will just feel inconvenienced, as it is just a serious health condition. The items I did notice were very few, and a poor range with about 3 or 4 items.
The non-​frozen free from range was slightly better, with the new range from Schar being slowly introduced, including their bread, however some of the pricing was a little high, to try and get people to use their own brand items, which I do feel is slightly a con, as it isn’t a «value», brand as such, and with some products costing 40% or even more, if you wanted to go to a branded gluten free name.
They did have some good products to be fair, with the Christmas Tree shortbread being continued from yesterday, but unlike ASDA they don’t seem to have introduced a cool, own brand range as of yet.
The staff did seem quite nice who served me at the till, with other staff being average/​poor, however I also didn’t like how some till staff were not wearing uniforms, and some were, which was certainly not smart as they should be aiming for, but just casual, and made me wonder if a woman had jumped on a till, put a name badge on, and started work, just to get «Work experience».
The iced coffee range is also poor, with Starbucks drinks costing an average, competitive price of 2 for £2, with own brand products (not very nice) still being a little pricey at £1 compared to the Starbucks offer, the range of Starbucks drinks were poor with just 3 to choose from, and none of the glass bottled Frappuccino beverages.
I was also upset to hear Morrisons have scrapped price matching the competition, and their loyalty card is becoming a rip off, where you have to spend about £5000 to get a £5 voucher (although some items come with bonus points), which when Tesco it basically is a point a pound, and 100 points back is £1, that is a lot better and more competitive.
Most of the pricing here is a little pricey, and competitive on some items, and I did overspend by 75p, as printed on my receipt, but still it seems they just want to raise prices and not reward customers with price matching, which Sainsbury’s, Tesco and ASDA still offer, and this makes me feel Morrisons know their prices are not as good as other brands, as well as considering they don’t want to reward loyal customers.
I feel this store deserves a single 1 star, as they really don’t seem to be with it for gluten free, with inconsiderate layouts in the freezer, not stocking the great to-​go food range they have, staff not looking smart, increased prices by 50 percent for branded items and as well as few other minor reasons, which are to do with Morrisons in general and the store just following that.