Fresh food vs weekly shop

Doing the weekly shop at a "one-stop" supermarket is a fact of life for most of us.

But a new study of our food shopping habits, one of the most detailed ever conducted in Britain, shows that consumers are becoming disenchanted with superstores.

Because of a growing demand for fresh and high-quality food, more people are choosing to visit local stores two or three times a week or even daily.

This change of approach may explain a revival in neighbourhood grocers' shops. It also provides an insight into why the big supermarket chains - such as Sainsbury's and Tesco - have been so anxious to break into the local-store market with new smaller formats such as "Local" and "Metro".

The study, carried out by researchers at Lancaster University's Management School, and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, compared shoppers' attitudes in 1980 and 2002. It found that the number of people relying on one store for all their groceries has dropped sharply from 46 per cent to 31 per cent.

And, in an even more surprising finding, consumers now name "small and local" as the single most important factor in choosing a store.

However, for basic supplies, most Britons still have to depend on a supermarket, with 65 per cent of those surveyed saying they went to a "main store" for the bulk of their shopping.

Professor Ian Clarke, who led the three-year project, said the new trend was partly down to our increasingly hectic lives.

He said that shoppers valued ease of access and proximity to a "repertoire" of shops, rather than just another large supermarket.

He added: "Despite the huge explosion in retail provision and improvement in living standards over the past two decades, people just don't have the retailing choice available that policy makers think they do, irrespective of their social standing."

Professor Clarke said it was now up to the Government to decide whether to allow the new demand to be met by the giant supermarket groups, or whether smaller chains and independent stores should be encouraged to thrive.

The study was based on more than 4,000 interviews and questionnaires, as well as focus groups and shopping diaries. The findings are due to be presented at a conference in London today.

A spokeswoman for the think-tank New Economics Foundation said: "This evidence of the 'fightback' against remote superstores reflects the fact that a local shop is much more than just another place to buy food, and people want services that are part of their communities.

"The supermarkets insist that they only respond to customer demand, but they are now obviously missing a beat.

"This proves that buying and selling food is about much more than loss-leaders and high profits, but action needs to be taken now to ensure that small local retailers survive."