What's on the perimeter in your grocery store?

RoteBook

My closest grocery store Nob Hill apparently got the memo about shopping the perimeter, and put all the most expensive things around the edge.

From the entrance all the way around:
Sandwich shop
Deli
Bakery
Prepackaged meat
Butcher
Dairy
Paper goods
Frozen food
Cards and balloons

Sloth2016

I'll play. Perimeter has flowers, veggies and fruits, prepackaged cheeses and cold cuts, BACON, dairy, meats and sausages, fish, bagels and breads, cakes and bakery sweets, deli and lotto tickets.

I have to reach into the store side of the perimeter to obtain poptarts and Scotch.

Center aisles have frozen foods, chips and cookies, and beef jerky.

pebble4321

Yum, I wish my supermarket had a baklava counter!

Machka9

Around the perimeter of my closest grocery store ...

potato chips
pop
candy
frozen goods of various sorts including ice cream, frozen pies and cakes, frozen dinners, and frozen veggies
dairy products
the deli
a large display of cakes and squares ... so delicious-looking. They are beautiful!

Machka9

Around the perimeter of one of the grocery stores close to where I work ...

alcohol products
potato chips
the cakes and squares display ... lovely, but not quite as nice as the grocery store I mentioned above
the deli
dairy products
the butcher
the packaged and canned meals
the candy

CurlyCockney

Thank you OP! I've read so much about perimeter shopping on MFP that I thought that all USA shops had the same layout (and, to be honest, was quite envious because you'd always know where everything is!)

I use 4 different stores, but for my everyday type shopping I go to Asda. Shopping the perimeter would get me:

Prepared fresh veg (peeled potatoes, diced carrots, chopped cabbage etc)
Processed meats and meat pies (packaged)
Fresh fish and seafood
Fresh, made to order to cook at home pizza
Processed meats and cheese (unpackaged, deli-style)
Rotisserie chicken
Alcohol
Seasonal items (e.g Easter eggs or Christmas chocolate - at the moment it's back-to-school stuff for kids)
Baked goodies (cakes, muffins etc)
Clothes and household goods
Cigarettes and perfume

Edited because I forgot the cakes - how could I forget cakes?!

LokiGrrl

I tend to go clockwise because the whole setup seems to be beckoning the other way and I'm contrary, but I'll work counterclockwise due to peer pressure.

In front of you as you go in, and to the right:

Flowers
Deli (with sushi kiosk and olive bar)
Bakery on the right, cheese on the left
Produce (including specialty dressings)
Packaged frozen fish
Fish and meat counters
Sausage/Lunchmeat
Juice
Eggs and Dairy
Paper goods
Baby stuff
Soap/shampoo/toothpaste
Cosmetics/perfume
Pharmacy
Random seasonal stuff including cheap clothes/expensive UT paraphernalia/dorm stuff
Books/magazines
Bank (not mine)
Customer service (returns, bill pay, check cashing, tickets)
Carpet cleaner/gas rental
Cigarettes/e-cigs
Self-service machines (water, ATM, Coinstar, lottery, etc)

Guess I'd miss coffee, canned meat (mmmm deviled ham), coffee/tea, wine, mineral water, frozen stuff, pet food, candles, office/school supplies, laundry/cleaning supplies. Plus all the cute Texan/Tex-Mex stuff you find in the dishes and BBQ/cookware section. You can also get super cheap wine and bar glasses if you look, they have them at different times. Also batteries. Those are always on endcaps for some reason.

Of course this is just the regular HEB. Central Market is a freaking maze and I practically need a map. Sprouts appears to have been laid out by people on hallucinogens and I can never find anything in the aisles.

I tend to go around the perimeter first, then go to specific aisles for what I want, and then these days I'll do another turn or two around the perimeter just to get some more walking in.

lemurcat12

fishshark wrote: »

at whole foods one perimeter is produce the opposite is bakery and where you get all the hot food.. pizza, hot bar, sandwhiches ect.

Yeah, this is the same as the WF I go to also. Of the 2 WF within an easy walk from me, one has the cheese on the perimeter, one does not, so I guess if forced to perimeter shop I'd go to the one with the cheese on the perimeter!

(We are promised that one cannot gain weight if eating only from the perimeter, right?) ;-)

WinoGelato

pebble4321 wrote: »

Yum, I wish my supermarket had a baklava counter!

Preach!

gatorsong

Starting from left to right when you go in the front door:

Left Wall:
Fresh Deli/Fresh Breads/High cost cheeses
Pita breads/chips, Egg Noodles
Frozen section: Breakfast pastries, Mass market cheese, frozen vegetables, frozen breads, butter/margarine

Back wall:
Eggs, Milk, rest of dairy items
Meats: Seafood, Poultry, Pork Beef
Mass produced meats/deli items, bacon and sausage

Right Wall:
Fresh fruits & vegetables
Bulk dried snack foods (the bin kinds you fill up in bags)
Bagged/Canned fruits and vegetables
Refrigerated dips/dressings
Seasonal area
Large Bottled water
Whatever is on clearance at the time

LaceyBirds

LokiGrrl wrote: »

I tend to go clockwise because the whole setup seems to be beckoning the other way and I'm contrary, but I'll work counterclockwise due to peer pressure.

Ahhh, the funny things I learn or realize from using MFP.

I keep seeing people mention the direction, and after reading your comment, I thought about which way I shop, and realized that I always shop counter-clockwise. Upon further reflection, I realized that I actually feel a bit uncomfortable when I think about shopping clockwise.

And then I realized why.

I'm right-handed.

When I shop counter-clockwise, I can easily reach out with my right arm for the item I'm buying. When I shop clockwise, I have to either use my weaker left arm, or reach across, or stop and move toward the item.

A personal problem, I know, and probably crazy, but this was a funny realization for me.

Carry on.

lemurcat12

I like the turn the discussion has taken!

I always shop clockwise, and that's because the fruits and veg are a bit left of the entrance I normally use (although not on the perimeter!) so I get started that way and then circle around, with stops in the aisles that have things I happen to be looking for.

That's in the mainstream grocery -- in one WF it's counterclockwise, since I check out produce first, again, and in the other it's back to clockwise, same reason.

DKG28

the bakery, when you first walk in. produce is between the bakery and refrigerated on the side of the 1st aisle. Then meats, lunch meats and cheese, milk, yogurt, beer, butter, eggs. All the freezers make up the first few aisles. Granted, most of the aisles I don't go down, but some are mandatory (beans, frozen veg, coffee, tuna, quinoa, brown rice, olive oil and vinegar, etc).

Vegibex

You wouldn't all be wishing for that baklava counter if you thought about how much temptation you'd need to resist! It's so hard. So, so hard.

CattOfTheGarage

I shop anti-clockwise because the door is at the south east corner and the aisles go North-south and the checkouts are along the southern wall and you have to start shopping by going up an aisle, you can't start out by walking across the bottoms of all the aisles and past all the checkouts and straight up the booze aisle like a heathen. That way lies madness and anarchy.

This applies to both my local supermarkets. The one I sometimes stop at on the way into town is mirrored, and it is unsettling.

The main thing I would miss out on by shopping the perimeter of my favoured store is a selection of wonderful items which I need desperately right now despite never having considered owning anything like that before, which are seductively cheap and ALL limited time only and will be gone by next week. This is completely fatal, especially as several of these items (a steam floor cleaner, floor cleaning robot and flying gazebo sun sail thingy, to name but three) have turned out to be so fiendishly useful as to justify the phrase "life changing" or at least "how did we manage without this thing?", which makes it much harder to reason away the urge to buy.

peleroja

We mostly shop at Costco these days, and that would leave me with, like...appliances, pet food, meat, cleaning products, and flats of pop, if we're not counting the outside aisles but just against the wall. If we are counting those, I get everything but seasonal stuff like patio furniture, books and entertainment, clothes, and candy, so that would probably be beneficial to my bank account and I should consider adopting the practice (particularly as most of my wardrobe seems to come from the Costco children's section and my husband's is even worse, although he buys clothes for actual adult humans.)

Alluminati

Perimeter: Bakery, vegetables, meats, dairy, deli, seafood, greeting cards, patio furniture, florist

Staples I use that would miss:
Frozen veggies
Ice cream
Canned beans
Tuna
Spam
Cookies
Pasta
Canned tomatoes
Salad dressings
Diet soda

Camish911

Subway (yup, the food chain), First Credit Union, take-n-bake pizza, deli counter, bakery, meat counter, cheese, yogurt, juice, soda, bulk items, and paper supplies (toilet paper, paper towels etc). So on the perimeter of my store I can get fast food, make my car payment, and get lots of protein.

GreyKnight120

We easily do most of our grocery shopping around the perimeter of the Walmart we visit most Saturday mornings. There are a few things we stray into the middle for, but most of what we purchase just happens to be along the outer limits anyway.

Perimeter stuff: Salad/produce, Packaged meat, eggs, cheese, milk (dairy, almond, or otherwise), yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, nuts

Interior stuff we get: Coffee, tea, canned veggies, canned salmon/tuna, anything health&beauty, whey, dog food, cleaning products, box breakfast/lunch, protein bars, oatmeal

As kind of a footnote: vinegar and olive oil are at the end of the aisles very near to the perimeter so we usually scoop those up without going very far down any aisle.

jjdig

Wow! This is fascinating! My mom always said "shop the perimeter because that's what gets replaced most often". But just seeing what is around the perimeter around the country - it's really interesting!
So is there like a marketing/grocery organization class or something, or how do stores decide their layouts?