Most women I know like shopping at malls for clothes, shoes, handbags and other branded goods. Me? Yawn. Give me groceries and Tesco any day. Fresh fruits, vegetables, drinks, poultry, meat, seafood, cat food, toiletries top my list the way an LV handbag never would. A Tang's loyalty card is wasted on me, but I cherish my Tesco Clubcard the way I would my credit card. Hubby thinks I'm strange that way....but hey, James Dean royal rebel, remember?
I have a rabid obsession with Tesco. I know there's Carrefour and Giant as well, but after all my years of analysing all 3 hypermarkets' price pattern, Tesco has remained a firm favourite. In general, Carrefour has the cheapest eggs and dairy products, but they stop being competitive in the fresh produce section (especially the greens). Tesco offers the best price and quality when it comes to fruits and especially vegetables. What I like most is that Tesco regularly clears its stock (I think on a daily basis) by putting their old stock in the "Reduced for Clearance" section....where one can often find gems that are still in perfectly good condition. The other hypermarkets do not regularly practice this, which makes me kinda wonder what they do with their old stock (throw?). Of the 3, Giant is the most expensive...in general. Of course, once in a while, each chain will have promotions for certain items that are the lowest of the low in terms of pricing, but I'm talking overall price, freshness, ambiance and quality comparison here. Tesco wins.
Sign me up as a Tesco life member. Truly. I monitor weekly prices of goods/food/whatever and hubby takes me to Tesco for me to destress after a long week's battle. I literally decompress at Tesco....walking into Tesco's beckoning doors is a weekly ritual and an experience that to me, is akin to a kid walking into Disneyland. The weight lifts off my shoulders, the mood lightens, the excitement builds. It never gets old. I am Tesco's biggest fan. If I didn't work where I'm working now, I'd probably be working for Tesco as their Chief of Procurement (ahhh what a dream)....LOL!
I trawl Tesco's website at the end of every week, to get the latest promos to feed my "aunty" instincts. ( I do not understand why Giant and Carrefour do not religiously update their websites on a weekly basis - such a waste of a perfectly good advertising resource!). I wish that Tesco would send their weekly fliers to my residence, unfortunately they don't. So website it is, and the weekly newspaper adverts of course. Last Friday, the website advertised frozen pizza at RM6.90/box...usual price is probably around RM10.00 I'm guessing (well Jaya Jusco sells their pizza at RM10.00/box, same size). Had to buy! Had to buy!
So I drove to the nearest Tesco after work and had a good old time examining all the latest products. They were introducing a new line of in-house brands (apart from the existing Tesco Choice and Tesco Value), and many of the goods and food items were being sold at introductory prices.
Finally got to the frozen foods aisles, and found that they had many varieties of Tesco Choice pizza going for RM6.90. There was Hawaiian Chicken, and some other chicken-related flavours. I took a box of Four Cheese Pizza (350g) and put it in my cart.
I took 4 boxes of Beef Pepperoni Pizza (RM6.90 for 400g), and into my cart they went.
This was how the Four Cheese Pizza turned out, after we added even more cheese (mozarella, parmesan, cheddar) and ham toppings at home!
In my opinion, the Beef Pepperoni Pizza tasted better than the Four Cheese Pizza because it had more tomato gravy on it. No regrets here! Great value for money.
So yeah, Tesco is my fix. And I was overjoyed when I recently found out that they were in the midst of building a Tesco in Old Klang Road (diagonally opposite the main wet market).....oh so near to our crib. Construction is underway and it is scheduled to be completed in 2011, by which then it will take us all of 5 minutes to drive to Tesco. Yay! Tesco rules!
