Next door to the Post Office and Superdrug, directly opposite Bar Rendezvous, we have Farm Foods. The name may suggest that shoppers will be flicking straw off their chosen vegetables as a rosey cheeked son of the soil serves them nature's fresh provender in this establishment.
Actually, the food here is mainly wrapped in plastic and sold a few degrees below freezing. If the food sold in the 85 chest freezers and 6 chill cabinets of this frozen food specialists have come directly from British farms then the crisis in agriculture will have been solved.
Something tells me however that any added value takes place a long way from the fields and Farm Foods is several stages down the food chain from the place the food was grown. Attempts to reassure customers about this has lead to some Orwellian use of slogans: 'Freshness Frozen in', 'Naturally fresh, naturally frozen'. The only vegetables which I am aware are ever naturally picked at temperatures near freezing point are brussels sprouts. All the rest, naturally, do not leave the fields anything other than warm. Someone at Farm Foods knows this latter slogan is fundamentally meaningless, and has decided to further reassure shoppers that 'Frozen Foods Retain their Vitamins'.
What this shop mainly does is sell convenience foods cheaper than Sainsbury's as 'individually priced items', balancing quality with value. For those who have to shop this way (and are thus unable to buy the real fresh food sold a few yards away on the market at genuinely competitive prices), Farm Foods accept vouchers: Provident, Bonus Bonds, Capital Incentive, Healthy Start and Milk Tokens.
With that positioning of itself at the bottom end of the market carefully achieve, the store then belies its image by offering a good deal of £2.99 for a 400g frozen Lobster. (Price correct as at 26 March 2008)