SAINSBURY’S is trialling a new service for older and disabled customers – a two-hour ‘Slow Shopping’ scheme on Tuesday afternoons at its store in Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Staff are available to help customers with their shopping – and seats are placed at the end of aisles for shoppers to have a rest.
The idea was championed by Katherine Vero who lives in Newcastle and used to find it hard to go shopping with her mother who had dementia. Research published by the Alzheimer’s Society has found that eight out of ten of the 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK list shopping as their favourite activity. However, since being diagnosed, one in four have given up shopping.
Over the past year Sainsbury’s has invested over 50,000 hours in training store colleagues how to help customers with visible disabilities and non-visible disabilities like autism.
Customers can request assistance with their shopping at any customer service desk in any Sainsbury’s store.
