In the last few months a new store has opened near us on Fiveways Corner, Croydon; Morrisons. They’re a store I’m familiar with being northern, “More reason to shop at Morrisons” being the song which immediately comes to mind. They’ve never really existed down south until fairly recently, but now they do. They’ve also cut loads of their prices to make a shop more affordable for families with healthy basics. We were sent £80 in vouchers to try it out!

Morrisons at Fiveways Corner is huge! We decided to go on a Saturday morning – and I have to say, going to the supermarket is not something I do very often. I generally order my food online via Ocado, and have my weekly shop delivered – a lot of this is due to working five days a week so I don’t want to spend my time in the supermarket. Ocado recently went into partnership with Morrisons, and while they’re not yet offering online delivery in our area, it should happen soon.

I wrote a list – mainly so I wasn’t led astray by food, as that tends to happen every time I enter a supermarket. It can be so distracting sometimes! That and I wasn’t sure exactly what Morrisons had in-store and whether I could get it.

As we entered the store we arrived in Market Street – and wow! My favourite supermarkets are ones where the food is fresh, well stocked, well replenished and kept fresh (by misting) – like what I’ve seen in Australia where you want to try everything on offer as it looks so good. Market Street reminded me so much of this, and we easily spent the most time here. H chose a yellow courgette and a purple pepper to try – and I was impressed with a wide selection of fruit or veg being 69p or three for £1.50 – without skimping on quality. Comparing that to my weekly shop, I’d say it’s a better price. You need to look out for the yellow markers in-store, which clearly mark the permanent price reductions – or just check the price cuts here.

The aisles were spaced out well with plenty of room to see what was on offer – there was an entire banana row! We liked the fresh herb section, and had mint and basil on our list, though there was no basil out. I could have asked a member of staff but chose to go for the planted herbs instead.

There were recipe cards around the Market Street for various things (including cheese straws with cranberry) which we’re going to try – I do like these kind of things as if they’re easy enough I’ll give them a try.

Shaun and H chose some meat – and we’re planning a barbecue this weekend so chose accordingly – some chicken drumsticks and a rump steak on offer at half price (I wouldn’t know where to start having been vegetarian for over 30 years but there were plenty of staff who would have been able to help me).

We wanted a pizza night on Saturday night, and H was able to create her own – with a multibuy deal on offer. It was so much quicker than making it ourselves plus she loved choosing her own toppings – meaty ones of course; “you can have some of mine mummy” she told me, until I reminded her I don’t eat meat.

When we got to the wine section we were on the hunt for Western Australian wine which proved difficult to find – though the other regions are well covered. This is a common problem in British supermarkets, so not unique to Morrisons! We settled on a couple of bottles, one red and one white which were reasonably priced at £4.99 each and were good quality. I would have preferred the wine to have been broken into countries as they were all mixed up, but ultimately we found something we liked anyway.

The frozen aisle had a good selection – especially in the vegetarian part. We don’t buy a lot of frozen food apart from Quorn products, and Morrisons had a fine selection.

After that it was general groceries – and see if what we wanted had multibuys available. We followed the list faithfully and ended up with a few items we couldn’t locate. A pleasant surprise was having bags of compost at the checkouts – which was on the list! (wish we’d done the deal though as Shaun had to buy more today)

There was a good selection of clothes for all ages, and toys – we were able to get two tubs of Playdoh for 99p each (as H seems to love leaving the lid off hers… sigh!). The clothes area had a handy size chart – when you’re tall like H, a lot of brands have clothes which come up way too short, and remembering how tall she is as well as everything else is another thing my memory refuses to retain, so this was really helpful.

So… how much did our massive Morrisons shop come to?

This much!

Which is one of the reasons I don’t go to supermarkets too often – I spend more than I intend to! Having said that, we got things we need, and we’d have bought wine from a different store so it was a similar amount to what we’d spend on our weekly shop (as I don’t buy meat – that’s up to Shaun as I won’t cook it and we’re not going to be buying compost any more).

My overall opinion of Morrisons? I would shop there again. One thing I forgot to add to my list (and look for) was Seabrook Crisps. I can only hope as a Leeds-based company they have an entire aisle of them! For me, spending over an hour of my family time at the supermarket is something I probably wouldn’t do very often, however, once Ocado/Morrisons online shopping becomes available in our area I would definitely consider changing – the cost is lower than what we currently pay at Ocado.

We were really happy with the food we bought and have had some tasty meals this weekend.

We were sent £80 in Morrisons vouchers to do a weekend shop. We certainly did just that, and all opinions are my own and honest. Thank you Morrisons and Britmums for the vouchers!