MARTIN SLOANE \ Supermarket Shopper English supermarket offers a variety of carts to use

One of the interesting things about shopping in a supermarket far away from your home town is seeing how the store does things differently.
When I visit a supermarket overseas I am interested in the selection, prices, and how shoppers save money. Finally, I ask myself, would my readers be comfortable shopping there?
Take shopping carts, for example.
Here in the United States, almost every supermarket chain uses one cart size -- usually the big, very deep carts that are good for the weekly stock-up trip. But for most in-between trips, they can be overkill, and for shorter shoppers and expectant moms, they can even be unwieldy and uncomfortable. The supermarkets in the United States say offering more than one cart size would cause all kinds of problems, not the least of which, the carts wouldn't nest together.
Having more than one cart size is no problem for Sainsbury's supermarkets, a leading chain in the United Kingdom (www.sainsburys.com). I recently visited a Sainsbury's store in Christchurch, an hour's drive south of London. While the store is just a little smaller than a typical U.S. supermarket, it is well lighted, clean and the aisles are unusually wide.
At the entrance to the store, I found four choices for carrying my groceries. Large carts, just like those in the United States, a smaller, shallower cart with a basket less than a foot deep, handbaskets and a dolly I could use to push the handbasket around without actually carrying it.
Prices
Inside the Sainsbury's store, the first thing I noticed was a big display of Coca-Cola, on sale; 2-liter bottles for 1 British pound. Seeing as a British pound is approximately $1.60 U.S., I wasn't impressed. Walking into the large produce section a big sign offered shoppers a 16-ounce package of strawberries for 1.79 pounds, or $2.80 (reduced from $4.46). Both the strawberries and the sale price looked good. Were there any other surprises in the produce section? The end-aisle display "Pick of the Day" offered a 6-orange bag (brought all the way from Uruguay, South America) for $1.60. I compared that to a single 6-orange bag priced at $2.49 at one of my local supermarkets in South Florida!
Near the entrance and off to one side is J's cafeteria-style restaurant. At 2 p.m., the restaurant was busy with shoppers taking a break. The "Food to Go" section offered freshly prepared items like Chicken Balti, Bombay Potatoes and Thai Green Vegetable Curry. In the bakery department, customers were selecting from a variety of freshly baked loaves and running them through a self-service slicing machine. The self-service meat department was not impressive and boneless sirloin steak was $10.88 a pound. The service seafood department offered three-dozen varieties of fresh seafood with salmon steaks on sale for $5.79 a pound.
Dave Fordman, a store manager, told me that shoppers choose Sainsbury's because of selection and quality. "Our prices are not the lowest, but our quality is tops, especially our own private label." Attractively packaged Sainsbury's house brand was offered in almost every product category. If you were walking through the Sainsbury's aisles you would also recognize familiar American brands including Hellmann's, Kellogg's, Sara Lee, Kraft, Heinz, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi and Friskies.
On sale
I found "Sale" signs in almost every product area. In several locations I found special clearance shelves. A full refrigerated cabinet was marked "Reduced to Clear," and a clerk told me every item expired that day or within a day or two. As I stood watching, I noticed a lot of shopper interest. Since American-style manufacturer cents-off coupons have never become a popular promotion in the United Kingdom, Smart Shoppers depend on sale prices and special deals.
Sainsbury's does offer a member card program, called the Nectar loyalty card. Unlike most card programs at U.S. supermarkets, which offer discounts on selected groceries, the Nectar program allows shoppers to accumulate points for purchases at thousands of retail outlets -- Sainsbury's as well as BP (gasoline), Vodafone (telephone) Debenhams department store; Thresher Group (a drinks retailer), Adams children's clothing stores, and service or repairs at participating Ford dealers. Is this a better loyalty program than U.S. cards? See the nectar site online at www.nectar.com and decide for yourself.
Would you enjoy shopping at a Sainsbury's? Consider this: There are 30 checkout lanes at this Sainsbury store and on this busy Friday afternoon 28 of them were open! There were no lines! Just walk up and check out. That's what I call superior service. What do you think? Write to me, Martin Sloane, the Supermarket Shopper, in care of The Vindicator. I publish the most interesting letters.
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United Feature Syndicate