Walking into the Sedlescombe Sainsbury’s superstore recently I passed a girl in tracksuits carrying a stack of steaming pizza boxes. ‘I didn’t know Sainsbury’s does takeaway pizza,’ I said to my husband. ‘Anniversary dinner?’ (two days away). Why not?
Sainsbury’s has been toying with made-to-order takeaway food for a few years, while shutting down their butchers, fishmongers and delis. It is opting for fast food in place of skilled, knowledgeable customer service. And it really shows.
Testing its products wasn’t quite as easy as I’d anticipated. I can’t attest to all Sainsbury’s but the level of disorganisation and incompetence at the Sedlescombe branch on the A21 astounds me. I tried on three different occasions to purchase a hot pizza from their takeaway counter, which is presumably built for convenience and fast service. The first time I went, the pizza counter was closed (although it was 11 a.m., fair enough). I decided to wait an hour until it opened, taking my children off to read Peppa Pig books in the back aisle. I did some shopping while the kids lay on the floor in their winter jackets reading books to each other. Then my son started repeatedly asking for juice, so off we went to the café in search of his heart’s desire.
‘Sorry the oven wasn’t turned on,’ he said, as if it was the oven’s fault.
The café had severe food supply and staff shortage issues. The soda machine looked like it was wrapped in police tape and bore a sign that said, ‘SORRY WE HAVE RUN OUT’, and the drinks fridge was almost entirely empty. Nothing for my increasingly restless children. Can we just buy a smoothie from the juice aisle and drink it in the café? No. Only drinks purchased in the café can be consumed in the café, even though there are no kids’ drinks for sale in the café. I bought two hot chocolates at the café instead. My son didn’t drink it because he wanted juice.
After killing an hour waiting, I trundled two hyper toddlers into the trolley and returned to the pizza counter. The woman behind the counter seemed to be avoiding me. ‘Any chance for a fresh pizza?’ I asked her. ‘No, sorry. We don’t have the ingredients. My colleague is supposed to bring them but he won’t be here until 1. Can you wait an hour?’ We left to make cheese toasties at home.
I had to plan my whole week around a third visit to the Sainsbury’s pizza counter, and it’s a thirty-minute drive from my house. I returned this week with my son and ordered a large cheese because that’s all they had, and was told it would take ten minutes to cook. I did some shopping and returned after 12 minutes. The man behind the counter looked sheepish –‘Sorry the oven wasn’t turned on,’ he said, as if it was the oven’s fault. ‘It’s gonna be another ten minutes.’ I returned ten minutes later. Still not ready. I decided to wait and let my polite but brooding presence be felt. Finally after close to thirty minutes, my undercooked cheese pizza emerged. The man put it in a large box and handed it to me. ‘Can you cut it for me please?’ I ask. ‘Oh sorry!’ Then he remembers to ring it up and out the price tag on it. But I can’t pay for it there, I have to pay for it in the shop queue. ‘Can I eat this in the café?’ I asked, not optimistic about the answer. He looked as though no one had ever asked him this before. ‘You’d have to purchase something in the café first.’ I didn’t relish a repeat of the last café visit, so instead I shuffled off to the Peppa Pig book aisle. My son sat on the floor and read while I secretly sampled some pizza, trying to ensure no one caught me doing it.
It was better than bake-at-home pizzas, and astoundingly cheap at £5 for a large, but it was really not worth the effort. I’m shopping at Tesco from now on.
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