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If you're like me, you are not amused when grocery stores make things hard to find, so you find yourself lost, zoning out on a Burt's Bees display. Of course this is a marketing tactic to make you impulse-buy stuff, but doesn't it suck?
A new grocery store in Berlin (opened September 4) that I found out about on Tasteologie, has taken an interesting new approach to stock and display. Kochhaus (translation: Cookhouse) comprises 20 different "recipe tables." Each table contains all the ingredients you need to make one dish: say, for example, a roasted dorade fish with potatoes, zucchini, and eggplant. From the produce to the fish to the oils and vinegars, everything is arranged on and around the table, including an appropriately paired wine.
A handful (not all) of the recipe tables change weekly, and have included crème brûlée and beef carpaccio. The recipes are developed in-house.
All you need to do is grab all the items, along with a recipe instruction card, and you're covered. Or, as Berlin fashion magazine sugarhigh put it, according to my Babel Fish translator, "Catchy, illustrated take home Instructions take the hungry by the hand and gently guide them down the road tons of self larva culinary bliss."
That's all I'm asking for in my shopping experience: a little more self-larva culinary bliss.
Image courtesy of Kochhaus
Wegman's does this, and it's how I started cooking, actually. I love it scattered in doses around the whole store.
I can see the appeal of this in small doses, but not store-wide. Imagine having this setup with a cooking demonstration or a sampling station. For people "on the go" it could be beneficial. I like going through a section as much as anyone, but if I were in a hurry this could be cool.
Publix has been doing this for years. One of the first things you see when you walk in is a refrigerator that has all of the ingredients for the "meal of the day."
I agree with tatmagouche. I can hardly imagine a grocery shopping design that I would enjoy less, outside of maybe getting actually shot by a gun at the door.
Consumer-era overthinking for underthinkers. That would annoy the hell out of me, and I assume most people who know perfectly well how to shop and cook. Just give me a produce section, a meat counter, a grains aisle, etc.