Stephen Jardine: Cut-down giants also cut choices

For me, it was the final straw. A week ago, a shop I’d known and loved for years closed its doors. I expected a “For Sale” sign to appear, followed by a jostle over who would grab this prime space in the centre of Edinburgh, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, the shopfitters descended like vultures and yet another local branch of a supermarket giant rose from the ashes.

Out goes a real one-off shop. In comes a store you will find from Plymouth to Peterhead. To make matters worse, another supermarket chain has a local store just five minutes away. Do they actually even bother to assess local demand, or is this just part of the never ending march to ensure we have no choice left but to buy their goods?

Across the road is a branch of a local grocery business which supports local suppliers. It has been there for a decade but, facing loss leaders and the buying power of one of Britain’s biggest supermarket giants, how long will it last? Weeks? Months? Consumers only benefit when there is choice and corner store supermarkets put that at risk. They first emerged about ten years ago. Until then supermarkets had been content with their grip on major retail sites and the weekly shop, but as planning applications ran into problems, they turned their attention to corner stores.

Since then, cut-down local versions of the giants have sprung up all over the country. Glasgow has 16 branches of Sainsbury’s. Edinburgh has 21 branches of Tesco. Some are well located and provide a good service to local shoppers where there was nothing before. Others crowd the market and drive competitors out of business. They also remove character from our shopping streets, making retail bland and boring.

Experts have predicted at some point they will reach saturation point. Perhaps that is now and this latest store in Edinburgh will be the thin end of the wedge. Not far from where the shopfitters are at work lies an empty restaurant with a message in the window. It says simply, “Not a Tesco”. The site would be a prime location for a supermarket neighbourhood store, but instead it has been snapped up by local food market Earthy. When it opens in the spring this will be their third Edinburgh store and the company are determined to make sure customers have choices. “We want to offer an alternative,” says Earthy director Pete Jackson. With a supermarket branch just around the corner, time will tell if David can see off Goliath, but the signs are the tide is turning. But responsibility also lies with us. If we wake up in 20 years and find every corner shop looks the same and stocks the same range of products, we will only have ourselves to blame. If we want choice we have to encourage it by supporting stores which offer something different. They may be a few pence more expensive, but that is the price we have to pay to ensure local shops have a future.