A grocery store is a retail store that mostly sells food stuff in bulk; most grocery stores sells non-perishable foods packed in cans, bottles, and bottles while some have fresh produce such as butchers, bakeries, and delis (Mayo, 1993). Many large groceries sell non-foods such as clothing, electronics and household items and mostly are supermarkets and hypermarkets. In countries like Canada, United States, and the United Kingdom they sometimes describe supermarkets and convenience stores as groceries or grocers; in U.S small groceries that sell vegetables and fruits are referred to as produce markets (Spellman, 2015) .
1. What type of food or products was most plentiful in the store? What types of food or products were difficult to find?
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Over the weekend I visited one of the largest groceries in my area and spent a couple of minutes there observing how people, the Americans do their shopping and how they select their food stuff. Out of my observation, I noted that the product which was in plenty and well stocked were Vegetables and grains such as meat, eggs, soy, flaxseed oil, wine, Tofu versions of meat, Organic Kohlrabi, Cheese, bread, Desserts, sausages, sandwiches and cooked foods. I realized that in this grocer in is hard to find foods such as pepper, traditional herbs and spice products and food.
2. What claims were used to promote food items? Did these items emphasize taste, nutritional value, cost or ease of preparation?
The foods in the groceries were labeled with each having a short description on how essential they are to someone’s health and that they have no adverse effect when consumed as they are purely natural and fresh. Ready to eat foods were also termed as sweet and not spicy and they had people taste the food before buying. The food testing was to emphasize its taste; they also ensured that the food was balanced and contained all nutritional requirements and sold at a pocket-friendly cost and this contributed to their sale.
3. What were typically the most expensive items in the store? When a wide range of prices exists for the same type of product, what distinguished the lower from, the higher priced versions?
The most expensive items in the grocery were meat and cheeses; most products which were made up of meat were expensive, also cooked foods which contained different varieties of foodstuffs was also sold at a higher price compared to those not made up of many products. Sometimes I found prices contradicting I discovered that same type of goods was sold at different prices some high and others low but when I enquired I was told that each is sold according to their quality as some are of high quality while others did not meet the high quality thus being sold at lower prices.
4. What type of behavior did you observe on the part of the shoppers? Under what circumstances did shoppers interact with one another?
When buying certain products such as grains, vegetables, and cooked foods, I realized that the shoppers interacted with each other and helped each other choose the product they want to buy. Some shoppers even asked their fellows to help them taste the food and also assist them to choose which product best suits who they were buying for. The shoppers were also very sensitive when purchasing vegetables as they selected the freshest ones and were not interested in the products which seemed to be not so fresh; the freshness of the product attracted them much, and some bought the products in bulk.
5. How were meats and poultry labeled and displayed? What were efforts made to distance these products from their original animal forms?
The meats were labeled and arranged according to their sizes and the kind of the animal the meat is from; this was to ensure that every shopper choose easily what he/she wanted and the labeling distinguished each from the other. Poultry meat was also put in a separate shelve and labeled accordingly.
6. What did you observe about the sizes in which different types of products were available? What did these sizes imply about the social settings in which these products will be used?
Some products were in large sizes while others were just packed in small sizes; this was because the food which the shoppers liked was the ones packed in large quantities whereas the ones in small packages and quantities were the ones only preferred by some people. This implied that some foods are familiar to the Americans while others are preferred by a just small number of individuals.
7. How were foods from various racial/ethnic groups distributed throughout the store? Were some racial/ethnic foods presented as normative whereas others were presented as unusual or exotic?
The Americans foods were plenty in the store because most residents were Americans and only a few people were not whites, and that's why the whites preferred foods were in bulk while other foodstuffs just in small quantities. Products commonly used by the whites were treated as normative while those they did not like or use was dealt with as exotic.
8. What other observations did you make that informed you about cultural values? What were cultural values evident in the supermarket setting?
I noted that people of the same culture mostly prefers same products especially the foodstuffs and that they find other exotic products as unusual. I realized that a supermarket or a grocery sells products according to the culture of the people around even if the owner is not from that culture he/she sells products which the people around prefers.
References
Mayo, James. (1993). The American grocery store: the business evolution of an architectural space . Greenwood Press.
Spellman, Susan.(2015). Cornering the market: Independent grocers and innovation in American small business. Oxford University press .
