Hypermarkets have not been flavour of the month for a number of overspaced retailers in the UK for a while now.

A visit to the recently refurbished E.Leclerc store in Orvault, near the French city of Nantes, might go some way towards shifting this perception however.

Created by Interstore Design, the store puts a heavy emphasis on fresh produce in the same way that might be expected in much smaller supermarkets.

The outcome is an E.Leclerc store of 113,000 sq ft that has many of the features common to French hypermarkets, but presented in a manner that succeeds in making the whole feel like a series of large market-style shop-in-shops, rather than large, faceless departments.

This is achieved, for the most part, through the use of overhead baffles that incorporate suspended ceilings, lowering the gaze and avoiding the ever-present danger of characterless, wide open spaces that are common on the French hypermarket scene.

E.Leclerc is one of the more price-conscious French food retailers, but the interior of this store feels anything but budget.