Winner: Tesco Extra Danestone, Aberdeen
Store manager: Mark Robinson
Opened: 1989
Size: 100,000 sq ft
Market share: 19.4%
Nearest rivals:
Iceland – 1.8 miles
Aldi – 1.9 miles
Lidl – 1.9 miles
Sainsbury’s – 2.7 miles
Store data source: Analysis by CACI. Call the market planning group on 020 7602 6000
How did you fare during the heatwave? We were OK up here. The availability from the depot was superb. We never ran out of ice cubes and coped well with the volumes of ice cream. We didn’t see a negative impact and that’s down to the team because they keep an eye on replenishment when it’s hot. We have a store manager app where we can amend orders if we believe we need extra products because of weather, which is extremely useful.
Are any interesting trials going on? Two major launches have just happened. One is we are going bag-free on dotcom. From two weeks today, any orders will be fully bagless and it will save something like 250 million bags a year. Also, our delicatessen unfortunately closed and in place of it there is a bulk buy trial with Booker.
What’s your favourite part of the store and why? My favourite part of the store is produce, purely because I want to make sure the quality is right. For me it’s a really bright, colourful area and it’s something that if you get it right it’s really engaging to the customers. So I make sure it’s clean, it’s tidy and if I wouldn’t buy it I certainly wouldn’t be having it on shelf for the customers.
How would you describe your management style? When I first came into this store I had to be firm because it’s such a large store and you need to get the teams in place. I think as I got to know my people and my people have got to know me I would say in the past 12 months my style has been completely relaxed with them because they absolutely deliver every single day.
You must have a pretty big team. I’ve got about 400 colleagues. It’s a big, big shop. We’ve got a lot of young talent coming through in our Options programme, which is absolutely superb, and we’ve had one person through the graduate programme who is now a store manager of an Express.
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