Went the other day and bloody hell it's such a shithole, really grubby feeling to the place, didn't look like it had been updated in about 20 years and all the staff looked depressed as hell.
Used to be top drawer back in the day, can anyone who works there or who has given any insight?
It’s been bought over by notorious asset strippers. Hardly surprising
Same story at Morrisons too.
Oh, so thats why last Xmas I got a fresh Turkey crown for £12 from Tesco but the same thing was like £58 in Morrisons.
It's basically what the Glazers did at Man Utd. Buy the company with debt secured against the assets you are buying and then pay yourself handsomely from the business cashflow.
Basically, what that Czech billionaire wants to do to RM.
It's happened to dozens of UK brands, assets and companies. Boots, Weetabix, Asda, WorldPay etc. there are now literally hundreds of examples, they have all been taken over, many of which by American private equity. Britain has also opted for cloud storage offered by American companies instead of trying to build up its own alternative.
the UK is very much for sale.
This is a very good book on the subject.
related: oh my god Weetabix is such a joke these days, so expensive! Ever since they got bought in 2017 they've way outstripped inflation in price rises. I was genuinely quite happy to see a supermarket ownbrand clone of it in stock in my local shops (I'm so thrilling 😅).
(I wont mention/recommend brands as I don't want to look like some kind of advert bot, but Weetabix are taking the piss with how expensive they are now, thanks American corporate greed)
Tescos cheap weetabix (yellow packet, weirdly the blue box isn’t as good but costs more!) is in my humble opinion better than weetabix and costs about £1 a box compared to £3.50 for Weetabix. It’s literally dried wheat how does anyone stick Weetabix in their trolley and thjnk its a good deal
I saw £8 for a 72 biscuit box yesterday….id no idea how f’n expensive it had gotten.
No way?! Were you buying it at a motorway services or an airport?
I shall look tomorrow...
£8 for a 72-pack seems to be the standard price. It's the same on the Sainsbury's website, for example.
Aye, Tesco's own brand Weetabix is about a third of the price for almost exactly the same thing in all but name.
How ironic you posted a link to buy on American owned, billionaire's, capitalism's wet dream: Amazon!!
Shit fucking company. Don't give them your money.
...where is the irony?
I didn't suggest that many of these companies aren't good at what they do, they obviously are, my point is that if the UK government wasn't full of small minded, short sighted sycophants, we could protect and nurture UK businesses.
Good luck avoiding Amazon web services, by the way, the NHS use them.
Irony is that it’s a shitty, tax-dodging company that treats its staff worse than many other corporations; maybe…?
Except they weren't talking about
They were talking about asset stripping
There's a lot to criticise Amazon about, but asset stripping isn't particularly their MO
If Amazon did a lot of "buy a company, strip the assets" stuff then it would've been ironic, but they don't and therefore it isn't
Sigh
Why do people still not understand what irony is.
Blame Alanis Morrisette.
US is a plague on the world. Run by greedy psychopaths and owned by corporations. We need to demand our leaders to not sell our businesses to Americans! They’ve ruined chocolate, supermarkets, food, healthcare etc.
And what happened to Thames water. It's almost like its by design
If satisfying the shareholders by law more important than providing a public service, current situation is exactly what happens.
Florentino Perez is not Czech wtf
It's called a leveraged buyout. They effectively mortgage the business then cost cut viciously and asset strip to pay the interest on the massive loan they took out. Hopefully, the business survives and they can sell it for a profit. Capitalism.
Basically what's happened to Britain as a whole over the past 30 years.
For venture capitalists, having a successful company which brings profits is useless unless you can use the company to buy another one, and asset-strip both.
Madness. I've seen perfectly well balanced, record-breaking profit making companies completely destroyed with this methodology. So many people lost their jobs, it's even remotely not a joke.
Woolworths is a good example. Old school business, bought, asset stripped and bankcrupted. Now B&M is in the same places doing the same thing, illustrating that it wasn't the death of the high street that did it.
Morrisons went down hill when Dalton Phillips took over from Mr Morrison, sure things held on, but he used his position to ensure he would benefit nicely, and so has every other CEO since then, either fucking with staff wages/bonuses, or doing something unnecessary that was just a way to pay themselves, or a buddy.
There was Marc Bolland in between he dis nothing except ride a wave an use it as a stepping stone to m&s
T Rex were good though
And did a shit job of M&S and so he resigned, and now they’re on the up
I always say this is when Morrisons went downhill due to those stupid misting machines on produce. I met him when I worked there, didn't think much of him.
At least Morrisons has a fish counter and meat counter. Only Morrisons and Waitrose have one now in my area. Previously, Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda all used to have them.
Our morrisons is probably the best supermarket in the area.
Fish/meat counter, deli/cheese counter, the pizza/salad bar and two seperate bakery counters (one for bread and another for the sweet goods)
Shops are regularly cheaper than the tesco next door (even with a clubcard), it's cleaner and the staff seem happier too. Oh and they brought in more self checkouts recently and since then I don't think I've had to wait more than 30 seconds for a till a single time.
Constantly see people complaining about morrisons but it's become our go to for the family shop and pretty much everything in between.
And they have actual butchers on their meat counters, who can recommend and prepare specific cuts for you.
Sure, it’s not as traceable as a farm shop, but I’m pretty sure they run their own farms too. So less risk of undeclared horse ending up I. Your mince…
I worked for Morrisons as a butcher for 10 years. We actually had a very good team in my shop, but by the time I left most of the butchery counters in the region were shockingly bad.
It's a race to the bottom as with most things in the UK. Reduce the staffing and don't replace leavers, which leads to less availability, which leads to more prepack meat to keep the shelves stocked, which means less staffing hours, which leads to less availability.. You get the point.
Loved my time as a butcher in my shop, I really did, but by the end I was fed up as they kept taking away things for me to cut and belittling the job.
I asked the butcher in my local Morrisons where the chorizo was and he said he’d never heard of it and asked what it was.
To be fair, chorizo is cured meat and wouldn't be served at a butcher counter.
I think I've noticed it more at Morrisons.
Its worth naming them - Mohsin and Zuber Issa - and also pointing out they got CBEs for their asset stripping and tax dodging dealings. They are genuine scum, and the world would be better off if they had never been born. They've fallen out now because one of them has no morals in his personal life (wow what a surprise)
I agree with your sentiment but I couldn’t remember their first names as they’re commonly just referred to as ‘the Issa brothers’ and it was laziness on my part not to google them to check the first names.
You didn't give the second name either!
Did you miss the bit where they said they were lazy? Lol.
I know. I just assumed everyone would know ‘the Issa brothers’
Which shouldn't be legal or profitable, but we had decades of businesses lobby writing the laws.
Also agree.
They should have let Sainsbury's buy it - not a huge number of overlaps of store footprint, but it was blocked by the competition commission.
Yes, at least they’d be paying Corporation Tax, now they’re just servicing debt, a way to avoid taxes and funnel money overseas.
That shit should be illegal
Probably be easier to do if those in power weren’t involved in similar practices
I made a post about this the other day and Private Equity companies.. basically just bleeding any money out of every organisation they touch to near enough run it into the ground but barely keep it operational.
It's something that, IMHO, needs some kind of regulation and urgently.
Asda has never been ‘top drawer’ - it’s always been the shittest of the big four in my opinion. But the owners have loaded the company with debt and are clearly asset stripping it as though it’s a water utility company. The ugly face of capitalism. So I assume they have cut staff and budgets hence the poor environment now.
Private Equity ruins, literally, everything it touches. That's by design.
Certain types of Private equity buys things which are already failing and takes drastic measures to try and save them or recoup as much value as possible. Sometimes that works, sometimes it fails. You don't notice the type that buys healthy businesses and helps them grow. ASDA has been trying to sell themselves for a long time and probably had major problems that required immediate cash.
My old department (I don't work at Asda anymore) of 5 people (2 full, 3 part-time) lost a full time person worth of hours recently. Say goodbye to a full pizza counter or rotis section if you're near me. They're expecting one person 5 days a week to do the work of 2 people for minimum wage.
The chilled department also lost nearly 70 hours, that's another 2 full-time colleagues. Some mornings there's only 1 person on expected to fill shelves and keep up with milk while home shopper's and customers are taking from everywhere. It's just not possible for one person to keep chilled stocked even if nights did their job to the best of their ability.
They're chronically understaffed in so many areas and it's really starting to show. The staff that have been there 5+ years are moving on because they know what it used to be like. That it has been better, there were stressful moments but they weren't expecting miracles every day.
Managers aren't even safe from what I've heard, while the shop floor staff have seen the biggest reduction in staffing I don't think it'll be long before managers go too. They've already increased the number of departments a manager is expected to cover. The cuts aren't coming from them, it's coming from higher up than store level. They're expecting even more cuts next quarter, it's not going to get better.
A couple of years ago they got rid of the earned bonus a store could get for hourly colleagues with the promise of competitive hourly rates. In my former store they seem to think a few treats and alternating Fridays or weekends is going to improve morale.
I've told this story to people personally before, but it's relevant here:
I used to work at an Asda part-time, while I was a student. I was assigned to the chilled section, so that usually means you get the early shifts, as that's when deliveries come in. I used to work alone on most days and did so for about 2-3 years, until I literally started getting health (physical and mental) issues, and decided to hand in my notice. During my notice period, maybe literally my last week or so, the store was undergoing an audit, which usually consisted of someone from either head office or another store in the region (I can't remember which) conducting it. The auditor spoke to me, as he saw as I was working alone, and I told him this is just the usual routine for me/the store. He then said that shouldnt be the case, and I should have had another 1 or 2 people working alongside me.
I've never felt so annoyed in my life, to hear that just as I was about to leave my job. Although that didn't last long, as getting out made me feel a whole lot better.
They're chronically understaffed in so many areas and it's really starting to show. The staff that have been there 5+ years are moving on because they know what it used to be like. That it has been better, there were stressful moments but they weren't expecting miracles every day.
I've worked at Asda briefly and quite literally everyone I spoke to that had been there for more than a couple years have said "It didn't used to be like this"
It's so sad to see a place you've worked at change into something almost unrecognisable. I've worked in a supermarket for 18 years now. I started when I was 16 and absolutely love my job. It was a step up from the wages of a paper round.
About 12 - 13 years ago, the business went into crazy shake up mode. Managers were moved, staff basically forced to work multiple departments which would include ordering, merchandising etc, cover tills when busy, people called on their days off to come and cover shifts and this shit went beyond crazy during covid! Staff getting torn apart on the shop floor in front of customers and colleagues. Getting rotas changed last minute and people going on the sick left right and centre - leaving even more work for the already hard workers. I've seen staff break down on the shop floor, its mental.
I've been so stressed I've been physically sick quite often at work. I can't sleep, I'm anxious and panicky when I wake up with the thought of going to work. Christmas is just insane! When I first started there, I loved it - the atmosphere, the christmas songs on the store radio, the cold weather. Now it's when bonfire night is over, we know it's the countdown to the big day, full of stomach churning dread.
About 5 years or so ago, I was looking to apply for a job in Asda but now it just sounds very similar to where I work.
And once morale hits an all time low, I don't think it ever recovers from the impact it's had on the staff.
Sounds a lot like my local Asda, it was shit before but the last few weeks the pizza counter and rotis section have been either closed or hardly anything there...
At the ASDA store I worked at, there was one person in charge of the petrol station. She essentially worked there completely independent to the rest of the store; chose her own hours etc, the station would only be open when she was there.
She quit a year ago and it’s been closed since, just two pay at pump machines left working.
Can confirm this.Friend has just been made redundant after working for Asda for 13 years in the store warehouse. Rationale was that they couldn't afford to keep everyone on their current wages. Their all on minimum wage!! I'm not sure how that works out, but expect replenishment of stock to reduce due to the skeleton crew they will keep to now work all over the store e.g warehouse, tills, trollies etc
Remeber folks if companies could pay you nothing for your labour, they would.
Yeah I read the post and was like “uhm every ASDA I’ve set foot in the last twenty years has been like this”. Ugly green uniforms, no sense of innovation or technology, cardboard lying on the floors, abandoned trolleys, shit depressing overhead lights.
Not the one I used to shop at. In fact it was the first time I've ever had Asda be my local supermarket and was hoping it wasn't as bad as people said. Was pleasantly surprised at the price vs quality aspect of some of their stuff.
They're also minimising the stock they have in place. It's really obvious when you go to the higher item value shelves like games etc.
A company is in deep trouble when they start limiting stock purchase
Their accounts look fine at the minute. Things like games aren't being purchased in high demand because people are moving away from physical media.
More likely they are behind on invoices so suppliers are ceasing to supply. This was what happened at wilko's 2 years before they closed.
Crunch point will be when one of the conglomerates like unilever ceasing supply.
In my locals, they've replaced several aisle with bottes of been, and the magazine aisle with cans of diet cola. They're definitely struggling.
When they first opened and the alternative was a small Safeway or the Co-op, they seemed amazing. Brief window to be fair.
Buy it with debt, use the leverage to take out loans, pay themselves dividends and buy other businesses, let it go bust, walk away
Usually not until theyve also underfunded the company pensions, don't forget that sweet treat
Bring in their mates in highly paid fake positions like Vice-President of Door Knobs, give them some hefty bonuses for achieving tight targets like having less than 90% of door knobs needing replacement in a quarter and give them a huge redundancy package when it's time to move on
The ugly face of capitalism.
More like pumping cheap money into the economy for decades. People mistake modern western economies for capitalism, and systems with higher tax and public spending as socialism. Neither are true.
All went downhill when they took away those chickens and cows that you could press. I always loved those as a kid!
And the playbus crèche where you could drop the kids off while you shopped with the anxiety that your child's name would be read out over the tannoy
And the little mini trolleys
They've got these at Morrisons now. My toddler loves them
This type of thing has massively gone out of fashion hasn't it. It's not long ago that McDonald's used to have ball pits, slides, and suchlike
They have a similar cow & chicken button in some Marks & Spencers stores. Went into one during half term and it was full of kids smashing the shit out of the buttons 😆. Thought I'd walked into the Dingles house.
A what?!
Next to milk and eggs you could push buttons to get the relevant animal noises
I just went into M&S today and was wondering why I kept hearing cows and chickens!
You'd be surprised how often daisy or "the girls" would "get ill" and quickly they got better and a hunt launched for the person who made them "ill".
No names no pack drill but do it again and you will get a boot up the arse as the constant mooing and clucking was infinitely preferable the crying and tantrums when the animals were "ill".
That’s so cool
New owners were idiots
*are
And will forever be
Greedy pair of twats.
Remember the new owners don't care about quality, just stripping assets and paying themselves bonuses. From their point of view, what they are doing is legal and smart.
I'm not anti capitalist by any means but these practices are horrific and should be illegal.
Not idiots, economic vampires.
New owners had their own priorities not necessarily in line with those of customers*
There - fixed that for you. They don’t give a fuck if a store looks grubby. They care how much cash they can personally squeeze out. But I highly doubt they are “idiots”.
Idiots are idiots because they lack education, these are vile monsters who intentionally causing decline for profit. I think calling them idiots is too kind.
Asda was never decent - it was always a depressing shithole. When I was younger, my mum did all the shopping in Sainsbury's as she hated Asda and Tesco.
I used to manage part of Waitrose's website and I was fascinated to learn how all the supermarket designs and layouts are done with a specific intent.
Oooo have you any examples of the specific intent? That sounds fascinating. I've always had a theory certain items have a marginally larger font to draw ones eyes to them
I did some work for supermarkets on their pricing models and it is a massive science. For example they put their most profitable items at eye level, and the lower priced items tucked away on the bottom shelves. Most of us shop at eye level.
Spaces on the most profitable shelves (eye level) and end caps are sold to the highest bid from suppliers. So they make a profit from you and the suppliers.
Some suppliers would buy up the best shelves just to mess with their competitors marketing.
An old trick was to slow you down in areas that they wanted you to spend time in, to increase the chances of a sale. They did this by making the floor tiles smaller - as your trolly went over the cracks between tiles quicker, your brain would think you were being faster than you were. This is why the tiles are different in the fruit and veg sections.
The list of tricks is endless.
Waitrose is designed to keep you in there browsing for longer, so they use warmer colours and lay it out almost like a home. Tesco, on the other hand, lays their shops out in a start/finish map, using stark whites and yellows, which doesn't make you feel like it's somewhere to stop and relax as they want you in and out.
The digital director went over all the supermarkets and they all have different reasons for their colours and layout, which I'd never thought about or noticed, but once you hear it, it's obvious.
I used to help with the scripts for Waitrose adverts and would often watch them being filmed as the Bracknell head office has its own studio. I'd watch as they covered the food in spray mount to keep it from deteriorating and stay glistening. They'd put burgers together and pin everything in place, use different liquids instead of the actual drink as they looked better on camera, etc, etc. Though all food companies do the same with their promotional stuff.
use different liquids instead of the actual drink as they looked better on camera
It's a pet peeve of mine seeing dramas where a character is drinking red wine and it's clearly Ribena or similar.
However, after what you've said, perhaps it's actually red wine and it just looks wrong with the camera/lighting setup? Even if that's the case it's no excuse, they should be able to find something to use that looks convincing!
Filming is a sloooooooooow process. A days filming can produce as little as 3 mins of screen time (actually that's quite a lot for some productions).
As such, whatever foodstuff is seen on screen is seldom what it appears and in the case of drinks, non transparent cups are the favoured choice as maintaining continuity on liquid levels is a nightmare when it comes to the edit.
(This is the reason the infamous empty cup™ is often held by actors)
In the case of clear glasses though, obviously the rules had to be different.
Given the actor might have to have done the take 20+ times (mainly for the purposes of getting multiple camera angles, rather than faulty acting), drinks are never alcoholic in nature on TV/film, drugs are never real (sorry fans of the Wolf of Wallstreet who think they were) and most of the food and drink is spat back out again at the end of the scene.
Notice I said "had". Thanks to the wonders of CGI, now it is possible to fake liquid in clear glass very easily (and cheaply) and a lot (might even be most) of film and television now has entirely fictitious liquid swirling around which eliminates continuity error which frees up the editing room from this evil restriction.
So learn to appreciate that Ribena looking substance. That actor had to drink gallons of the stuff and the editor had sleepless nights cutting the scene so the drink level remained non distracting. These people suffered for your amusement. Are you not entertained?
They move stuff around to generate the most footfall past other items. That's why they make you walk to the back for milk etc.
That's why they make you walk to the back for milk etc.
After working in multiple supermarkets belonging to different chains up and down the country, I'd say that the decider is more the location of the warehouse, the backup chiller within it, and the access to it. You generally don't want to be traipsing your cold chain across the entire length of a shop if you can at all help it.
The cereal will be as far away from the milk as possible
I'd say that a typical supermarket layout is to have the produce first, and the chillers wherever is closest to the warehouse doors that lead to the backup chiller. If it's large enough to have two rows of aisles, the front will have mostly non-food: entertainment, toys, partywares, household, homewares, health and beauty, pets, but also frozen as the very last aisles. The back will have your foodstuffs in. The "seasonal" aisle will be one of the first aisles. Produce will at least start in the front, but might span both sets of aisles.
If it's extra large, or an Asda, most of the non-food might be a whole section to itself, apart from pets and household.
The entire flow of the store is designed to maximise your spend. It starts with the offers at the door and ends with the nibbles by the till.
I actually thought it was ok while it was owned by Wal-Mart ironically, there were always innovative foods available, prices were good.
I've actually been approached by homeless beggars inside my local Asda before. Actually walking up and down the aisles.
Those were the staff
Some people can’t afford to shop at Sainsbury’s all the time.
My mum did all the shopping at Sainsbury’s I used to manage part of Waitrose’s website
Breaking news: Posh person doesn’t like Asda
Interesting side fact - I worked in my local ASDA on the tills when I was doing my A levels. This would’ve been from July 1990 to July 1992.
Back then stores didn’t open on Sundays every week but the Government allowed them to apply for special Sunday trading in the build up to Christmas (which effectively meant being open for 2 or 3 Sundays in December, for 6 hours).
My normal pay was initially £5.25 an hour with London weighting, so I’d get about £80 cash in hand (£40 for each Saturday shift, after National Insurance payments) every two weeks (yes, we got cash in a little brown envelope with a payslip that we had to collect from a special window instore).
But for Sundays, as they were both unusual and not popular with staff, we were offered double pay, so £10.50 an hour plus time off in lieu (pro rated for part timers like me).
By the time I left ASDA in 1992 to go to uni, I was getting £6.50 an hour on the tills for a normal day, and £13.00 an hour for a Sunday.
No chance of that happening nowadays when you adjust for 32 years of inflation.
The Bank of England inflation calculator says that £13 in 1992 is now £27.81 adjusted for inflation.
Wow.
ASDA hourly wage will be £12.03 an hour in July. No bank holiday pay, no sunday pay, no time off in lieu.
Shows how far we've come as a society... 😂
It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Wage stagnation in this country has been shocking since the 1970s.
The way the average salaried person has been coerced into accepting little or no wage increases in exchange for bigger payouts to shareholders is pretty outrageous.
I’m not 100% certain but I think the Tory Govenment of the 1980s were the ones to change laws on profits being taken as dividends rather than being reinvested in businesses.
Since 1979😉
Tesco did the same thing when I was there. Sundays went from time½ to time¼ pay, and they moved night pay from 10pm to 12am, I used to work till 11pm so I lost an hour higher pay each day. I also worked Sundays but the change didn't come in until id left, it was literally a pay cut, I'd have had to work around 6 more hours to keep the same shitty barely £1K a month coming in at the time.
Yeah, I worked in a Sainsbury's in the summer holidays when I was 15 (1988) and the arrangements were very similar - even ignoring inflation, my hourly rate then was probably higher than apprentices and young minimum-wage workers earn today. I thought I did work Sundays - we definitely got time and a half for some categories of overtime, and I thought I remembered getting double-pay after that.
I also worked at a big local market on Sundays, and got £38 a day including a £3 stipend for lunch. Last time I checked BoE inflation calculator said equivalent to about £100 a day.
It's absolutely shameful how young people have been ripped off by minimum wage laws in the last 20 years or so.
I started on £4.42 in 2002 (without weighting) I'm surprised you got £5.25 in 1990
The stock levels at my local are often quite dire. I was told by someone who worked there that they had the stock, just not the staff to get it out.
the Asda near us seems decent, pricing is competitive against Tesco most of time.... Morrisons on the other hand.... now that's turning into an over priced hit hole
Morrisons are verging on Waitrose prices without the quality
I refuse to go in a Morrisons now
Pricing like a corner shop in a giant supermarket
I had a nice Morrisons but it got turned into a M&S and Aldi. Which works remarkably well as you can hit both ends of the price spectrum at once. Technically you aren't supposed to take trolleys from one into the other, but the security staff take a pragmatic approach.
...but the security staff take a pragmatic approach don't get paid enough to care.
FTFY
Servicing a massive debt and can't turn an operating profit. They're in big trouble.
I wish I had an alternative near me. I either have a small Aldi that has completely random stock every time I go there, a small Tesco that has the range of a petrol station, and a decent sized Morrisons that costs an absolute fortune!
There’s something about Morrisons…
Every one I’ve been to has me feeling a bit light headed and wanting to leave asap. Sort of like feeling an impending doom
I think it's the lighting, as they always seem so dark and dingy.
I used to love going to Morrisons to get one of their wraps from the sandwich counter - they were really generous with the filling (the wraps were bursting), always had a queue of people, and they were part of the meal deal.
Now when I go, the selection and quality of fillings has decreased massively, they aren’t so generous with the filling - and more often than not the counter isn’t even open.
The branch near me is well-stocked and generally pretty good, but the vegetables go off 30 minutes after purchase.
Asda’s veg has always been like this, I remember watching an apple go off in front of my eyes, then I saw a documentary saying they store them for about 8 months in a protective atmosphere. Turns out you can’t stop the effects of ageing after all 😂
Issa brothers are held up as some kind of miracle business owners when they just buy with debt business and siphon cash out and then buy more business with credit and do the same. They pay little tax on anything and seem to be parasitic at best.
bastards total bastards
The new owners are in debt up to their eyeballs with Private Equity loans so bleeding the company dry to make repayments. They even did some despicable fire and rehire to push workers onto lower pay. The current owners are absolute scum.
https://www.gmb.org.uk/news/asda-boss-denies-using-fire-and-rehire-despite-7000-facing-threat
Asda is the worst supermarket, utter rubbish, drab stores, terrible produce.
I always thought Asda had the worst quality food but forgave it for the prices. Now, they increase the price of things and put their “Price Locked!” sign on it like they’ve done you a favour.
This was supposed to be "Dropped and Locked" but they ditched it and undermined the entire point.
I've never smelled a smell worse than the Asda toilets. It's like people don't realise the pee is meant to go inside the toilet.
Wait, what? Are you serious? Whoops!
Same, pay at the kiosk under the overwhelming stench of piss. I have sympathy for whoever has to work on there
The people who bought it from Walmart literally only wanted the petrol stations that ASDA have.
They don’t seem to give a crap about the food side of the business.
We have three ASDA stores within a 20 minute drive of where I live and the best one of the three is in the poshest location.
IIRC they've already done some shenanigans with the petrol station side of the business. My guess is it will allow them to sell off the supermarket business and keep control of petrol station side of things.
Oh yes and my local one became pay at pump only a month or two ago (that's fine by me), but they still only have two pay at pump pumps!
They try and get one person to do the job of 3 people. We've needed staff for years now but there's zero recruitment in our department. This is despite us having half our stock going to waste as there is no one to work it, management still refuses to take on anyone. It doesn't take a business degree to work out the money wasted through waste per day is higher than bringing in one new member of staff. Area management have allegedly frozen hours though, probably due to the greedy cretins in upper management. Complete shit pit of a business, just waiting for it to die
Issa Brothers. Asset strippers. No investment, just take money out.
2 brothers who bought it with debt and then asset stripped it cutting hours for staff
Paid £700 million or something like that for a Multiple billion pound company. Somehow then bought their own petrol garage company and put it in with asda.
Their bills come due next year so they either pay the billions or somehow look for another bail out. With recent interest rates and other shit going on it’s not looking good for them
I live near the largest Asda in Europe. It's immense. I never go there though because it's so big it takes ages to find anything.
They opened a food court in it too with some American fast food places, they are all shit.
Given they only operate in the UK, might as well go the whole hog and say it’s the largest Asda in the universe
milton keynes?? that’s become a ‘tourist’ asda now
I'd laugh at the concept of a "tourist Asda", but I live in a city with a tourist Primark...
Well it doesn't quite have the pull off the concrete cows but it'll do
Owned by 2 dodgy owners who run petrol stations, when did you last see a clean Esso or Shell.
What you mean about dirty petrol station s?
Ones near me are fine. Local mismanagement I'd guess.
Issa brothers have done what the Glazers have done to United
I have worked for Asda 11 years and you're absolutely right. There's no staff and there's no investment. At our store we need more scan and go guns, baskets, trolleys and the security CCTV system has been an absolute joke for many years. (I work trolleys and security)
We are getting daily complaints at our store but nothing gets done. People complain but still return to shop though so that's the problem. If their profits significantly dipped then I'd imagine they'd feel inclined to make improvements?
For reasons I can’t articulate I don’t like Asda or Morrisons. It isn’t just specific shops either I don’t like any that I have been in.
I’m exactly the same. They’re the two I avoid. I often go in to buy specific items and brands, but they are never in stock and I just leave disappointed.
Guess it just goes by area. Near me the local ASDA is the biggest store in the region and is pretty good. I shop early in the day now so I get in while the shelves are full and before the crowds.
My local Sainsbury's however, a total shithole.
I'm going to try the local Tesco soon as its closer to my new home, we'll see.
Asset strippers and an overall lack of staff as a result.
They do however have a great beer selection (morrisons is better but is a 20 mile round trip out of town), so that's usually the only reason I go there.
My younger cousin who's just left uni worked there (he worked there seasonally in summer and at Christmas) and quit last month, said the pay wasn't worth what they were expecting of him.
He worked on the rotisserie and said that the sinks for washing up didn't even have plugs, they had to use tissue to block the drain.
Lack of investment. it was bought out, loaded with debts from other companies and left to rot after the petrol stations were sold off.
Now its full of out of date food. Even seafood etc thats dodgy AF.
I went there a few months ago. Whole aisle of taco shells/tortillas etc. ALL different brands. ALL out of date by a week or more.
wasnt asda always a shithole? you can walk around aldi and the majority of people are normal, every asda ive been in is like the hills have eyes
Asda has stayed the same, it's you that has changed.
The only reason I go to Asda now is to use their scan and go machines and ‘accidentally’ forget to add items.
I then donate some of it to their food bank unlike the scumbag billionaire’s who run it.
It’s just going the same way most supermarkets are. Cutting costs wherever they can, cutting down staffing levels to the bare minimum… Used to really love going to our local Asda when I was younger, loved the cafe and I remember one Christmas they did some sort of Spice Girls promo, you had to collect badges of each member and stuff like that! It’s a shame it’s changed so much but that was a long time ago 😂
All responses so far seem to be directing the blame towards the Issa brothers. While there's no doubt they've stripped whatever assets they can (and continue to do so), this started much earlier when Wal-Mart took over many moons ago.
They squeezed and squeezed every penny out of it just as harshly but I suppose over a slower timeframe. I used to work there during the earlier WalMart years and it still had the old Asda ethos. Family friendly employer, quite well staffed.
Then slowly but surely it got worse and worse. Do more with less. Do more with less. The overhaul in 2013(ish) of the management structure saw a mass promotion of colleagues to Section Leaders (for base rate of pay plus £1.00 per hour), replacing a lot of managers who were salaried. Turnover of said section leaders got just as bad as it was at colleague level. There was also a change in stocking policy.
They used to have constant stock in the warehouse with the majority worked/shelved overnight and then supplemented with multiple deliveries a day. Then they reduced all the warehouse space and introduced 'top stocking', so those cases above the shelves became the warehouse space instead. Everything now sells outs quicker leaving empty shelves everywhere.
I was lucky, I saw the writing on the wall and got out a few years ago and have never looked back.
Since the Issa brothers took over, even going in for shopping now it feels like a cheap discount pound store.
Asda has always been a bit scummy.
I only go in for the make your own pizza and even they have stopped the optional drizzle of oils.
Asda has always been a hellhole with shit food.
It is usually a pretty good place to go on a social safari though
Private equity …like the rest of the high street…lower standards and increase prices
It’s always been bad but it’s horrendous now. I saw vegetables out on the shelves completely molded over. Fridge items left in the spice aisles. I took my friends into a waitrose to get bevs the other day, and they were all losing their minds at how cheap it was. Because of all the cost of living stuff Waitrose is actually pretty much the same as other supermarkets price wise (cheaper than Sainsburys and Co-Op) and their shops are always clean, stocked well, ordered. My family were working/lower middle class growing up and even after my father’s redundancy they still continued shopping at Waitrose- my whole family on my dad’s side has worked for John Lewis and they were treated incredibly well. Employees get bonuses, country club membership, special discounts. Honestly would recommend anyone to just shop there. It’s by far the most ethical supermarket in terms of how they treat staff, suppliers and the planet (they have the least amount of plastic packaging of the big supermarkets, as well as compostable bags for vegetables). Also like, at Asda I saw someone spit on the floor. Post covid. I vow never to set foot in it again. Like yeah, maybe I have less money over for the pub or whatever, but it doesn’t impact my finances much to get budget items from Waitrose and have a nice shopping experience and better food.
I worked there for 9 years. Albeit in the Walmart. Home shopping was genuinely the start of the downfall for me.
So each department is assigned a number of hours, this is also driven by sales. So a department can be over or under on wages depending on how sales go.
The cycle goes like this and until home shopping I recall it held up alright. So, sales are a little off forecast, hours are over, you send people home and cut overtime. Theres stock in the back unworked, there’s people queuing for a Pizza or a piece of Salmon and they don’t get service. Vicious cycle. They send people home early doors and the rest of shift never catches up, departments lose sales due to barren shelves.
Now when home shopping came in, some bright spark decided to implement this as an in store venture. This really didn’t help. Firstly, the aisles are littered with home shopping carts and their assigned employee. Secondly, the cost to employ these people is devastatingly high and the requirement far exceeds the increase in assigned wage budget. And lastly, because Asda are constantly in the aforementioned vicious cycle, the shelves are now even more barren than before and because of this sales are less, so there’s even less staff to get things back up to speed.
Home shopping became the priority over the in person customer.
Asda has always been pretty dire, but they were the cheapest of the big four so people forgave it.
Since the brothers and private equity took over, their prices have rocketed and now they are the same price as Tesco and their fuel was found to be the most expensive out of all the supermarkets.
Their USP has gone. They aren’t the best at anything anymore, certainly not price.
Have you seen and heard about the new owners? Place is only going to get worse now.
I worked for Asda for three years in the mid 90's and it was a shithole then. I still do the odd bit of shopping in my old store as it's only a few minutes away, and it's even worse now
spending their time purchasing smaller garage / express stores. they're opening like firecrackers!
My small local one had two staff running the entire front of store today. No wonder it looks like a bombs gone off in there.
Last time I was in an Asda store I saw a man in a vest eating rotisserie chicken right out of the bag with his hands while he was walking around the shop.
This isn't why I haven't been to Asda in two years but it helps me not to miss it.
It’s always been shit
Stripping of its assets. paying dividends to themselves through the debt they took on by taking out more loans in order to build multi million pound super Mosques, indebting Asda even more and bleeding it dry.
I have always thought the quality of their meat and fish was shit.
I have stopped going to my local Asda because they never have any stock, looks like a cattle market and they don't even play mainstream songs anyone and play god awful generic, royalty free shit to save a few more pennies. Absolutely dreadful.
I work in Asda and with all the issues it has I have to agree that the change to the music is the worst thing that happened.
I always used to defend Asda as the ones near us were great, really good range, decent prices and good quality veg. Most importantly for us they had a great gluten free section.
But the rapid decline over the space of a couple of years has been shocking. Their stock issues are a joke, they never have gf bread in, the veg is all freezer damaged, and the shelf layout changes every month.
Unfortunately with Aldi and Lidl- their veg is already rotten on the shelves, Aldi bread goes mouldy two days after you get it home, and neither of them do gluten free stuff.
Yup noticed this too, old stock, low quality veg/food and looks like everything is about 20 years old
Try m and s.
The Lidl/Aldi squeeze. Their market niche has evaporated.
Im guessing it's because they've cut the staffing by half but still expect the same amount of work to be done. Same everyway
I only go there for their extra tasty whole chickens and the extra special chocolate and salted caramel cheesecakes. Worth the visit for them.
Hedge fund who backed the brothers wanting their money back, with interest.
If I go to one of the big Asdas near me it’s as you describe and I would never return there again unless it was an emergency, the other big one is pretty decent, and the small one is actually amazing. It’s up to date, clean, well maintained, really amazingly well stocked for a small one being able to get so much variety of stuff, nice music on, efficient and good service.
I never used to go to Asda and never had a good impression of it so I’m surprised to hear it was “top drawer” but I love our small one for the last few years.
“Build up its own alternative” Didn’t you hear. We don’t make or create anything since Thatcher. We are purely a service economy.
Tesco's the same - cost control, bare minmum of investment.
They do have the best online grocery store, though.
As others have said it's down to the owners who have loaded it up with debt. However it will get worse because high interest rates.
I've always thought Asda were shite tbf, I'd put them as worse than any other supermarket. We did an order during lockdown because they were the only ones available and never used them again afterwards
Their fruit and ready meals have always been dross compared to Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Pizza counter used to be good but now has plasticky reconstituted meat. George clothes and homewares and the in store bakery in my local store are pretty good.
I had been using Asda for my weekly online shop for a couple of years, a few issues here and there but generally good enough to be worthwhile considering it's consistently the cheapest of the big supermarkets.
However in the last couple of months it got really quite poor, constantly getting daft substitutions or simply no substitutions available. When I've gone in the store it's got noticeably more bare shelves.
Ive given up with them and gone elsewhere. I'm currently using Ocado and whilst it's definitely more expensive I haven't had a single substitute or missing item yet so they're keeping me happy for now.
Try buying the Asda Chicken Kyivs they are fucking vile
There's a book and a film about this kind of leveraged buy out, where the target's assets are used to pay for its own acquisition if you're interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate
The practice came to prominence in the Thatcher/Reagen era with KKR acquiring Nabisco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg_Kravis_Roberts
The same things happened with Thames Water.
The Australian bank Macquarie has left Thames Water with an extra £2bn debt burden, a BBC investigation shows.
Asda is now the most expensive place to buy petrol out of all the supermarkets having previously been the cheapest prior to being taken over. You’ll actually find places like BP, Esso and Shell regularly cheaper than ASDA nowadays.
All the main supermarkets now have to compete with Aldi and Lidl on price on loads of products. To keep market share they have cut back massively on any costs they can. Even my local Sainsburys proudly boasts of price matches with Aldi on various things. This means the shelves have gaps where no one has refilled them for a while and the deli and fish counters are long gone. There is also online deliveries now which keep people out of the stores and are expensive to operate.
It didn't. It really didn't
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