I recently had the pleasure of observing a focus group of mums discussing grocery shopping and it was absolutely fascinating.

One of the most striking, and recurrent, themes was just how much they hated taking their children to the supermarket. In fact, the majority of these mums went out of their way to go food shopping when their kids weren’t around.

The main observations from the mums were that pester power was a big deterrent (with TV advertising and shopper marketing perhaps more effective on children than I had ever imagined) and that kids were simply bored out of their minds during a supermarket trip.

There have been a few bits and pieces from UK retailers to try and mitigate these problems, with a growing number implementing healthy checkouts; a couple of chains with mini shopping trolleys; Waitrose and Tesco offering free fruit for kids in a few stores; and Tesco recently dishing out some nice activity and sticker books for kids.

That said, the fact remains that UK food retailers do very little to engage with or entertain 20% of the UK’s consumers.

Little shoppers

Sure, Asda plays a blinder in seasons such as Halloween and Christmas, and I was impressed with the Tesco/Cadbury Easter egg hunt this year, but these are sadly exceptions rather than the rule.

It is little surprise that our smaller consumers do not look forward to supermarket shopping and therefore no wonder that many mums prefer to complete the process without their offspring.

This came up in conversation with an American colleague as we visited the exemplary Connecticut chain Stew Leonard’s. My colleague drives his children an hour and back on a Saturday because they expressly want to visit this particular supermarket.

Something of a cross between Whole Foods and a retro theme park, it features a train going around the ceiling, animatronic produce characters and grocery items, several foodservice counters (including ice-cream) and a selection of real-life farm animals in the mini farm in the car park.

Small gestures

Now, I’m not suggesting that Sainsbury’s should be installing narrow-gauge model railways, nor that there should be farm animals in every Morrisons car park (although both would be, frankly, awesome), but what I am suggesting is that UK grocers consider raising their game slightly in terms of engaging and entertaining kids.

Anything that might conceivably make a shopping trip easier for mum and keep a child occupied around the store would be no bad thing at all.

I faintly remember that, when my own offspring were adorable cherubs rather than hulking brutes that reek of Lynx, the Asda cow and chickens were very much a popular part of a shopping trip for them. I openly beseech Asda to enact their return.

And I remind everyone else that the little consumers of today are the big-spending shoppers of the future.

  • Bryan Roberts is global insight director of TCC Global