A lack of congestion and an abundance of special offers was a pleasant change this week. Our shopper visited the new Safeway at Reddish and was impressed with all the extra features such as its noodle bar. Meanwhile improvements to Sainsbury's Beeston store also gained approval. Specials were the cause of many out of stocks such as Tesco's 20% off Aussie wine which wiped out stocks of Jacob's Creek. Similarly, our shopper said a bogof on larger jars of Dolmio probably kept the 320g off the shelf. Safeway at Reddish had deals on McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and Hovis wholemeal, unlike the chain's Airdrie store which only had the 10p off Hovis special and was pricier than Reddish. Somerfield was offering 12-packs of Birds Eye fish fingers for the price of 10 and a bogof on Penguin eight-packs, while Nescafé was still on offer at Waitrose, Sainsbury and Somerfield at £1.40. Asda, however, had knocked down the price by a staggering 40p to £1.25. But the feelgood effect was spoilt when it overcharged our shopper twice. Braeburn apples were marked up as 45p/454g and then overcharged by 8p, and two 100g Nescafé were charged instead of one. In spite of these extra costs, Asda still supplied the cheapest full basket at £39.87. {{GROCER 33 }}

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