Before I read these chapters I did some grocery shopping at Wal Mart so the first chapter was extremely realistic to me. The description of the stores were very accurate to the actual store. Something from the reading that I immediately thought of was the position of the essentials items in the store. Nestle wrote that supermarkets place the highest selling food departments in the parts of the store that get the greatest flow of traffic such as meat, produce, dairy, and frozen foods. He also spoke about how the dairy is conveniently located in the back so that the consumer has to pass all the other aisles and is convinced to buy more. When he was speaking about the placement of the aisles I attributed it to essential aisles and filler aisles. The essentials aisles are products that he mentioned that are staple items in the house that most meals include. Then filler aisles would be filled with products that are non-essential and are typical not used in a typical meal. These aisles can be seen as ways to keep the consumer interested and buying more. This includes cookies, chips, and other snacks. From Nestle's descriptions I feel that most grocery stores alternate between essential aisles and filler aisles. For example a grocery store in my home town layout includes a large produce section then a frozen food section, then about three aisles of wine, beer, and alcohol. I would label the produce and as an essential aisle the wine, beer, and alcohol as a filler aisles. By interchanging the aisles it keeps the consumer buying more and them taking longer to get to the essential items they need. I think it would be interesting to see the implications of separating these aisles and putting essential items in the front of the store. Also, I wonder that the this supermarket layout has on smaller local grocery stores like Valesky's. I wonder if local grocery store feel the pressure to "trick" their consumers into buying more by the way they design their store.

Do you think that there are larger social implications than discussed in these chapters about supermarket layouts?