We asked people in Birmingham what matters most when they shop for groceries—price, quality, or convenience. In a city where food inequality runs deep, it’s not always about preference. Sometimes, it’s about survival.
00:01If you're lucky enough to have a car and a fridge full of food it's easy to forget what a luxury choice can be.
00:08For many in Birmingham the weekly shop isn't about brand loyalty or preference, it's about survival.
00:14Food inflation is biting hard, especially on basics like meat, veg and butter.
00:19In areas like Sandwell or North Birmingham where over half of children live in poverty, price matters but so does distance.
00:26So we ask people, when it comes to your groceries, what's the deciding factor, price, quality or convenience?
00:34I mean like the goal is a mix of all I guess but I mean probably price, I work part time.
00:42I look for the price and the quality, purely and simply because you get what you pay for.
00:50And I believe that there's a lot of rubbish put into food nowadays so I always check the numbers etc.
01:01Convenience normally, yeah price does matter but normally it's convenience.
01:09And price comes into it, of course it does but quality, I like the quality of a product.
01:16As you can buy cheap and it be, so I go for quality.
01:21What keeps someone coming back to the same shop? Habit, trust or just the simple fact it's round the corner?
01:27In Birmingham proximity often trumps price, some pay more per item because walking to the supermarket after work is the only buyable option.
01:36Others stick with the same shop because they know the staff, know the layout or know it stocks what they need.
01:42But not everyone has that luxury so we asked where do you usually shop and what keeps you going back?
01:48Most often I go to Tesco because it's right by where I work but there's also a little that's right near where I live so that would probably be the two most common.
01:59Well I go to Aldi's because it's local. If I want something a little bit what I consider to be higher quality, I go to Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer's.
02:14Well I go to Tesco in a very nice town in Cheshire. I go there because the customers are nice and the staff are nice.
02:25You can go to another Tesco another time and that's not the case. So the experience is nice people around.
02:32I go to several different supermarkets online, it depends what they're sat.
02:37What's up? Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Tesco's definitely. That's about it really.
02:48What keeps you going back to those places?
02:51You know where things are, you know the produce is good and fresh and I think that's it mainly, you know.
