Shopping: how far will you go?

When I lived in Coventry I was amazed at the plethora of supermarkets within a three mile (5 km) radius of the house. There was one road with a Tesco at either end, and they were both always busy. Not far away Tesco and Asda were next door, although the separate entrances off a dual carriageway made it tricky to pop from one to the other, I suspect that was deliberate. That’s the advantage of living in a big city.

Here in the rural Limousin I’m lucky to have a choice of three supermarkets within a ten kilometre radius, although two are the same group. According to Google, the closest is the new big Intermarche at Chalus which is 7.7 kilometres or 12 minutes’ drive away, although as this now has moved out of town and the drive involves several sets of traffic lights, mentally it feels further and I shop there less than I did when it was in the town. Slightly further away is our regular haunt, SuperU at Oradour which is 9.1 km or 14 minutes’ drive (providing you don’t get stuck behind a tractor) or Intermarche at Cussac which is marginally nearer at 9.7 km or 13 minutes’ drive.

There is a tremendous amount of research about how far the customer is willing to travel to shop. Not surprising, as this is a key factor when supermarkets decide where to build new stores. The more competition the shorter the distance, so people will travel twice as far for a one-off purchase at a specialist shop as they will to do a regular weekly shop. The UK government has carried out an annual National Travel Survey for the last fifty years. The latest report in 2015 showed that since the 1970s the number of trips taken per year is falling, although the distance travelled overall is greater. The number of trips made to go shopping is also on a downward trend, possibly due to the influence of online shopping, although this still accounts for 19% of trips. On average, people travel for 17 minutes in order to do shopping. There are similar figures in a US survey, which showed that people travel for 18 minutes or an average of 4.2 miles for shopping. Obviously location has much to do with it, as people in rural areas on average travel 50% further.

These figures are interesting and confirm why we tend to stick to the three local supermarkets for everyday purchases. A much wider (and slightly cheaper) variety is available at the larger Hypermarkets, however the nearest is 24.5 km/ 24 minutes away in Aixe, or 33.3 km/ 39 minutes away in St Junien. Unless there are other shops to visit then it rarely seems to justify the additional fuel. Our favourite shop for fresh food and some of the more exotic products is Grand Frais, but that’s 46 km or 46 minutes’ drive, so tends to be a treat.

I’ve pretty much got my new year shopping plan organised now and the store cupboard and freezer are bursting at the seams. Bring on the snow – we’ve got enough food to keep us going for a couple of months. Being a hyper-organised person, I’ve kept a record of what to buy from where and am keeping a strict inventory that theoretically means we should not run out of anything. I’ve called my plan the Shopping Circle. Items that are easily available, tinned tomatoes, bananas and soya yoghurts I’ll buy from one of the three local supermarkets. If I rotate the visits I can get the majority of things we need, it’s just not worth the extra time, petrol and hassle to drive to St Junien unless the item is unavailable locally. In that case, I’ll go do a big HyperU shop and buy two of each (or more). Specialist foods such as OH’s favourite chilli sauce, fresh coriander and smoked tofu have to come from Grand Frais or the BioCoop, so that’s the next alternative. Failing this, I’ll have a look online, preferably Amazon France, from where I order all the pet food and use panier plus to get cheap tamari and almonds. Finally, if there is no other option I’ll buy online from the UK, but only if it is cost effective, such as my recent experiment with the Holland & Barrett sale.

So, that’s it. Shopping is sorted and no more shopping rants on the blog – it’s time to get cooking.