Say it ain't so. We plan all our trips to the Lake District on the basis of being able to stock up at Booths on the way. It's the best supermarket in the country with the most comprehensive selection of great beers to be found anywhere.
Apologies if this is deemed as going off topic. It’s quite important to me though. Just like my LBS which also may be struggling.
I’m very, genuinely, sad to say I think it inevitable the best one can hope for is smaller stores in less affluent areas will close with the larger ones remaining in family hands. It’s widely rumoured, and the company have made noises in this direction, the business is for sale.
A few years ago Waitrose tried to buy Booths and were told exactly where to go. Since then with one or two exceptions Waitrose have opened in every town where there is a Booths. Generally Waitrose have better locations and of course people don’t like to go out of their way to shop. Personally I’d never set foot in Waitrose and I really don’t like it when my wife does.
Booths is a magnificent business with a great ambience, superb products and truly supports local producers. If it’s swallowed up by a multiple the downgrade will be significant.
My local Booths, Chorley, used to be a cramped, old fashioned store now replaced with a shiny new one. At Christmas it was noticeable the wine stocks were being cleared out, special offers abound since Christmas and one can frequently purchase high quality fish, meat and other products at 75% off retail price as the product hits sell by date. I have a freezer full of these!!!! It doesn’t fill me with hope.
I should say now we are retired shopping is a very careful exercise but by combining ALDI, Lidl, Poundland and Booths we are able to get basics very competitively allowing us to add real quality in Booths.
Chorley is being threatened with an M&S food store which would probably finish Booths. If this happens I’ll no longer have reason to go in to town on a regular basis and will probably go to Preston where I can still hit ALDI and Booths within reasonable distance of each other.
I was also interested to note our Boots chemist had a lot of product pulled to the shelf front.
Interestingly ALDI have a policy of opening stores in locations close to high quality outlets.
