I know a thing or two about food marketing...

I was in the top 20 in the Nation in food marketing in high school. I know how to identify almost every part and piece of a grocery store. Don't ask me how I ended up there, I have no idea. I do know my grocery stores.

Back in the fall, Food Lion did this rearranging of their stores, to make them look more like HT. Well, that is all fine and good, but now I can't find ANYTHING. Nothing. I forget things, because after I tire of searching for them, I give up. Before this disaster, Food Lion's were logical. Now, you get your bread three aisles before your milk that you can place on top to squish it. Beer and toilet paper on the same aisle, as it was before was quite logical. Now there are random toys in the middle of the store. Magazines with the bread, and God forbid you try to find crackers. They are with the juice boxes.

I HAD to go to Food Lion today, because my Surf City IGA doesn't have as many Healthy Request soups as I would like them to. The rest of the time, I go to IGA. Less selection, but much better prices on most things. When you need to buy in large sizes though, sometimes Food Lion is a good choice. IGA is little, it caters to the little consumer, all of us single people who live here in the winter. We don't always need a box of Tide to do 400 loads. When people come in the summer, they don't need HUGE amounts of anything (except sunscreen, but they carry big bottles of that), because they're usually leaving in a week. IGA also does a local's special every week which gets emailed to me. I love it. Today is local day, but I didn't need anything on todays only specials. My other things on special I can pick up later. Two weeks ago honey was on sale, so I stopped and picked up two bottles of it, it made me very happy.

Today as I was standing at Food Lion looking at chicken breast, I thought "I should just go back to IGA. Or I could just boil the chicken off the bone that I have now. No, I'm here, stopping to save $.50 isn't really worth it." I did take note though, I got 12 chicken legs on special at IGA the other day for $3.17, Food Lion had the same thing for $3.70. Uh huh. I do love IGA's meat. They do such a good job, and have never had a meat scandal!

Anyway, Food Lion, your new arrangement is horrible. Drink mixes need to be with beer. Wine, needs to be with beer. Wine also needs to be after the meat, not before like you have it, because I can't pick my wine until I pick my meat. There is too much stuff in the aisles, I keep running in to people. The bread needs to be the last thing you pick up, not the 5th from last. I don't like dairy squished bread. It saddens me that I now have to empty my own cart onto the conveyor, it was so much more customer service oriented before. Now I just avoid you all and self check out.

Whoever you hired to advise you, that you probably paid millions, you could have checked out all the marketing kids that competed with each other for three years over these things. I'm sure none of us would charge you millions. Here is my free million dollar idea that won me a trophy- Put your cookies near the milk. I hate to say it Food Lion, but you would not have even placed with that layout.