Market Basket — Local services in Westford

Because I'm visiting and don't live in the area the inside of the store feels extremely disorganized! It's not about what products a person needs it's finding them without needing to walk down aisles a million times over. It's not just the signs, it's the way and how everything is laid out. I used to work at a grocery store in Florida, (Publix supermarkets) and everything is laid out, and how the store looks.. very clean. While Publix Supermarkets aims and strives to be clean, and excel with customer service, and quality of food Market Basket supermarket aims to be in line/ competition with Whole Foods. I'm not a huge fan of MB grocery stores because everything feels sloppy, disorganized, not clean enough as it should be, not very well laid out - in terms of frozen foods/ dairy/ and frozen meats, and the 'on the floor' staff aren't always polite (even when a guy or woman moves out of the way to let them get through). I've even heard shoppers say your welcome or sure/ don't mind at all and I don't often hear the staff say a word... never mind acknowledge a customer. At other big chain grocery stores, the staff is usually pleasant, and kind enough to acknowledge any customers in and around the stores. If MB aims to pay the staff and get the 'on the job' training done before a woman or guy is hired for the applied position..then proceed to be responsible for their duties, the management and head supervisors should train ALL employees to act nice, be respectful, not act rude, of course helping a customer when in need, and to...

My review Nov 2024: produce is not often of acceptable quality. Recently we bought squash. It had no taste, so we dumped it. Kohlrabi bunch: one has a decent sized root at the end of the leaves. The two others where practically inexistent. And the price was ambitious. If you decided to peel those two, they'd disappear. Overall, Whole Foods has much better (authentic) tasting produce at not higher cost at least for Prime members. today, the whole aisle section for eggs had nothing else than the market basket brand, and among those I didn't find organic. Service said "probably the store house didn't have anything else left". Then how come the Market Baske in Littleton has the usual full selection when I drove there? Btw, the Market Basket in Littleton is better in various aspects, and we repeatedly observe.

My review in 2020: Good place to shop, BUT... (else I would have given 5 stars for price-quality ratio) :

The fresh fish is completely unacceptable. They used to sell good-quality fresh (!) fish some time ago. Two weeks back I bought two types of filet. They smelled very fishy. I put them right into the freezer and will certainly cook those well.

But today an experience that completely put me off: the 'fresh' shrimp had such a strong smell at unpacking that I drove back and returned. I was practically rotting and was the most repelling purchase I ever made in 40 years.

I won't buy any fish...

2 stars instead of 1 because the presence of them in the general area lowers the pricing of some competitors, though Trader Joe's, Costco, and Sam's are generally priced the same whether there's a Market Basket in the area or not. Albeit this store is relatively new, it does have stocking issues and key products are out of stock which forces you to compromise on something priced higher than what you'd otherwise buy. There's also issues that I can not believe, such as pricing for a frozen product being different on individual shelf tags as compared to what is on the freezer door. Lines at the deli and checkout are long. Also, there's certain selection issues in which I have to buy an alternative product priced higher (but same quality) for what I want than what I would otherwise buy at Hannaford. Hannaford may be priced 5% higher or so on average, but once you average everything out, I pay about the same price and have a better shopping experience at Hannaford.

Therefore, I conclude that people wanting decent quality groceries can often get out with a lower price with a well-rounded basket of goods at Trader Joe's, and wholesale clubs are cheaper by a wide margin. Market Basket even has dried cranberries on sale for $6.99 for 2 lbs when I wrote this. Try a bit more MB; Sam's has the same thing on sale for $4.31 for 3 lbs and regular price is $7.31 for 3 lbs (so the regular price at Sam's still beats MB's per...