Do you remember your first ever visit to a supermarket ?

1964. As a young teenager, Dad gave me £2 and a shopping list to go into town and buy everything we'd need for the coming week (except meat, fish, fruit, veg and bread, which were all bought fresh every day from the appropriate shops). It was the first time I'd been inside a supermarket and I was overawed and confused. I remember standing at the tinned veg aisle unable to decide between two almost identical tins of peas - same size, same veg, different labels, one was tenpence, the other a shilling, and I couldn't understand why. In the end, I picked up the cheapest version of everything on my list - Dad was thrilled with the amount of change I'd brought back. Big mistake on my part, as supermarket shopping became one of my allotted chores from then on until I left home.

Yes, I think it was called Caters, around 1960. My father was doing the shopping that day, and he bought lots of cream cakes, forgetting most of the essentials (as usual).

It was in Bromley Nanna8, so perhaps it was the supermarket you remember?

My first visit to a supermarket was to the Co-op in West Street, Boston in about 1958. We lived in a village with a traditional shop where you asked for things over the counter, so the whole family was very excited. Then Dad heard that a big Tesco had opened in Leicester, so he loaded us into the car and we went there for a whole day outing. I think we were a bit disappointed!

Thonknit was a Fine Fare 1968. Boes of tinned, packet foods on the floor, no bags, bring your own definitely. Can remember folk with what nowadays are large bags used in overhead plane lockers. Nothing pretty about the store but it was cheap compared to local Co-op, Wm Low shops.

Delila

Yes, I think it was called Caters, around 1960. My father was doing the shopping that day, and he bought lots of cream cakes, forgetting most of the essentials (as usual).

It was in Bromley Nanna8, so perhaps it was the supermarket you remember?

I posted upthread about Caters in Bromley. It was in the Market Square, now Bon Marche

I was about 7 and we'd moved down south where my auntie lived,in her town (newbury) she took our family to the new big Tesco that had opened up.it was about 1970,before that all we'd known was a small co-op and the corner shops where we used to live.

I remember going with my mum to Liptons Supermarket in the 60s at St. Neots.

Oh yes i remember green sheild stamps,a few shops had those i think,i had job of licking& sticking them when we had a load saved up.😝

It's starting to sound like Tesco were were one of the first main contenders for big supermarkets then.🛒

I was nine, I think, By today's standards it was a very small supermarket, but then it seem huge. It was in Giffnock, and I have no idea what it was called. There were four aisles, the one along the outside wall on the left side of the shop had a refridgerated counter with cut meat, cheese, butter and margarine. We had never seen the like.

It was at least another two years before our local Co-op transmogrified into a supermarket.

I can’t remember how I felt at the age of ten. It was a small cramped Tesco shop.
However, I can remember taking my Chinese āyí to the first supermarket (I think) in Beijing, Carrefour. She walked round in complete awe and if she came across another Chinese person, in the nearly empty shop, she stopped them to tell them what she thought. The difference, other than all the produce written in Chinese and didn’t look like anything I recognized was dead fish going off as Chinese people didn’t buy unless it was alive, also the yoghurt not in the fridge, (it was plus 40 outside).

The first time I went was a one-way Co-op, with only 3 isles, the second time was a huge Aldi in Copenhagen in Denmark. The shelves were stacked with cardboard boxes, nothing was displayed out of the boxes so just like a warehouse. You had to buy bulk so got it all a lot cheaper, no one serving of course, and just one checkout so the queue was endless I thought, probably a bit like Lidl is now. At least it is here where we never enough checkouts open;

I think Victor Value was the first local supermarket, which later became Tesco. There was also Fine Fare. This was early 1960s. I don't particularly remember my first visit.
Before that, there was Cullens for dried goods, David Greigs for ham and cheese, Kennedys for sausages and pies, along with butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers.

Oldnproud

My first supermarket visit must have been in 1968.
The reason I can date it is because my mum bought me a colouring by numbers toy in the shop, and i remember taking one of the pictures in to school after I had done it, and i was in first year juniors at the time.

It has just come back to me - at least I hope it is a genuine memory, not a false one - that my parents first supermarket shop came to around £5.
I remember that they had a lot of things in the trolley, but as an 8 year old, the price meant nothing to me, though they seemed pleased 😃

Our first local Supermarket wasn't very super. It was quite a small shop but it had the goods stacked in boxes with aisles in between and one walked round and just took what one wanted! It felt really odd. Not natural. It was a relief to actually pay for the goods at the till as it almost felt like stealing until then.

It disappeared soon after a "real" Supermarket opened in town. I can't remember what Supermarket but it wasn't one of the now well known ones. I miss the old shops to some extent though. I could ask for and get 2 eggs and a couple of slices of ham if money was tight before the pay cheque came in.

When I had children and a boozy, tight husband I could get a marrow bone to make the stock for soup and the fishmonger (remember them?) would know who had a cat and who had children when he dished out the fish trimmings. Fish pie. Delicious and nutritious.
Living on my own I hate the "bigger is better" food wastage that happens now supermarkets dominate the market.

I don't like the way they move things around so people have to look for what they want and be tempted to buy other things. Doesn't work with me, it just annoys me.

a shop called Caters in Roman Road market East London

I can’t remember going into an early supermarket but do remember the first frozen peas and the first supermarket chicken that my mother cooked. She didn’t know the giblets were in the body in a plastic bag so that got roasted too.
Did plastic carrier bags appear alongside supermarkets? I never went shopping until I left home, that was my mother’s job!

I was about 9 years old and I remember finding it exciting all the different products on shelves you could handle and pop into a basket it was a Fine Fare supermarket

ferry23

Delila

Yes, I think it was called Caters, around 1960. My father was doing the shopping that day, and he bought lots of cream cakes, forgetting most of the essentials (as usual).

It was in Bromley Nanna8, so perhaps it was the supermarket you remember?

I posted upthread about Caters in Bromley. It was in the Market Square, now Bon Marche

Oh yes…. Sorry ferry, Nanna8’s post just above yours caught my eye.
I haven’t been to Bromley for over 60 years & I’m sure I wouldn’t recognise it now, but I do remember where Caters was located, so shopping there must have left a lasting impression.

Fine Fare, early 1960s l would think. Lots of aisles with mainly non-perishable foods. Think it had pink shield stamps. It was probably the size of a large convenience store nowadays.

I remember Sainsburys as a young child with marble top counters, less of a supermarket more of an old fashioned grocers. Cheese under domes, wedges cut to order with a wire cutter. MacFisheries I also remember. Then at some stage later on a Tescos would be a port of call, not huge a fairly modest size. I think individual shopping, butchers, bakers and greengrocers still took presedence over the supermarket.

presedence precedence

We had a Caters near us in Watford. My DCs loved it as they sold enormous boxes of crisps. Salt and LipSting being the favourite

Macfisheries with my grandmother. Butter cut up and wrapped in blue paper.

My first visit was to the first Kwik save ever opened in Prestatyn in 1965. my father was friends with a Mr Gubbey the founder of Kwik save and we got invited to a pre opening to have a shop Probably it was to give the staff a practice but it was so exciting .