Are budget supermarkets worth the awards?

HAVING shopped at our local budget store ever since it opened, I’m at a loss as to the accolades it gets. The quality is fine for good value items, but ‘Supermarket of the Year’? I don’t think so. The store more often than not looks like a car boot sale, with items all over the place — tins of food in with garden supplies and tools. Staff are always hard to find. Do those who decide this award ever shop in a proper supermarket? VICTORIA HAINES, Brownhills, W. Mids. I Know exactly why a budget supermarket won the Best Supermarket title: it offers efficient service, good prices and isn’t overloaded with thousands of items most people don’t need. once a week I go to our local budget supermarket, get everything I need and within 45 minutes I’m home again, relaxing with a coffee and newspaper. occasionally, under protest, I accompany my wife to one of the overpriced big supermarkets. what a difference: to buy fresh fruit at a reasonable price one has to buy two bags, which we don’t need; the till operators are chatting and slow; and when checking the bill there’s a high chance items on a ‘special’ have been charged at full price, meaning a return trip to the supermarket.

MIKE WHITEHEAD, Banbury, Oxon. A FRIEND insisted we go to a budget store that had opened near Bristol: it was quite a revelation. I saw one customer take 20 slabs of cake, test them all with his hand, then decide he didn’t like any and put them all back. Others did the same in the cheese and meat section. Only one checkout was open and the car park was in chaos. If well-organised supermarkets wish to compete, I suggest they put all their own-brand and special offers in a pile just inside the doors and let the customers fight over them. Supermarket of the Year? You must be joking. Civilised shopping isn’t much more expensive and is a far more pleasant experience.

A. M. EACOTT, Montgomery, Powys.