October 29, 2007

eSpar ya uSpar!!!!

Am in love with Spar, the new Hypermarket on Bannerghatta Road. It’s a clean, organized, non-claustrophobic place to do your grocery shopping in, even if your grocery needs include flat screen TVs, cameras, clothes and whatnots.

The fresh veggies on the first floor are plentiful and you can pickup your weekly quota in an ergonomically-designed basket and head to the weighing section to have them weighed, packed and barcoded. Each species(?) of vegetable is put in a separate clear bag and weighed, and the bag is then sealed with the barcode sticker, which is read by the machine at the checkout counter. This step filled me with mild horror on my first few visits, since I buy 200 grams or so of many things, and end up with a lot of waste plastic.

Today, however, I was delighted to see they had figured out a way to solve this environmental and logistical problem. My motley 200 gram veggies were all weighed separately, stickers were printed out, and then all the veggies were thrust into one clear bag, and all the stickers were put on it! The checkout dude just beep beep beeped the bag thrice, and that was it!

Ambani uncle became the world’s richest man today, but in my humble opinion, the fact that a megastore figured out a way to cut plastic use is equally important news. Yay Spar (Ok. Yay Ambani uncle also.)

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I am depressed that the sanitaized nature of such shopping appeals to you more than the socially intimate "Indira market" type shopping.
I can understand the organization saves time and cleanliness only helps, but the social implications of such small operations is quite interesting and a characteristic of our society which needdn't be done away with for Kaka Ambani's pockets.

Ink Spill said...

If I had the luxury of time, the convenience of conveyance to anf from the mandi, and the ready availability of vegetables that characterise saddi Dilli, maybe I would never bother with a store. But it's the perfect dash from office when you need to get everything home on a weekday evening on your own in an auto!

Anonymous said...

They learned how to cut down the plastic? HEAVEN BLESS THEM!!!

Now if they would only spread the word...

Kahini

wendigo said...

:-)
glad you are settling uSpar.

Anonymous said...

y r u thanking kaka ambani ? he owns r-fresh not uspar :P

Hornswoggler said...

Chal achcha hai bata diya...been meaning to go. wanna coffee someday?

Anonymous said...

nayi post karooooooooooo

-sis