Becky Craze, the shop floor assistant who was offered the opportunity to change the way Sainsbury's sells, talks about her highs and lows on I'm Running Sainsbury's
I didn't see this programme as a way to just to get my foot on the ladder; I didn’t say, 'I'm going to do this to possibly get other jobs from other companies'. I'm loyal to Sainsbury's because they've looked after me for seven years and I’ve been given different roles and this opportunity as well and I don’t think if I’d have been in any other company I’d have been able to do this, because there's no other company is doing this. Sainsbury’s is always the leader in new ideas, so I wouldn’t ever turn my back on them.
[laughs] About an eight to start with and then it kind of died down. The more into it I got, the less worried I was. It is nerve-wracking obviously because it’s an idea, and it’s my idea, and I got quite close to it; quite attached to it. And when it didn’t succeed the way I thought it would, I did get quite upset about it. It was a good experience but it was very nerve-wracking to start with - going into Holborn, I was the outsider walking into the unknown. Everything was so exciting, when I got a desk I was like, 'I got a desk! Oh my god!'. But yes, it was good to do it though, I would never have said no to it; I'm glad I did it.
The only low point was with the sales. When the beef didn’t make it, I was a little knocked back, and I was like 'Oh OK, we need to think of new ways to do it', and I didn’t even think about the sales. The low point was when the sales didn’t reach what they needed to be, and you know obviously it’s not up to me; I can’t force people to buy things - but it was a little bit hard because it was the first idea I’ve ever had, like an inventor… it’s my only idea I’ve put out there, and it didn’t do it, and I saw it as a failure. Whereas I could’ve turned it on its head and said, 'Look, you know, people aren’t buying it because…', not give up on the idea because of the recipe. But there were definitely more highs than lows; it was the excitement of actually going into Holborn, cooking meals for customers and seeing my bag come to life - it was a whole new experience; it was a proper high the whole time.
There weren't any rules about who could buy it… I didn’t force anyone! I didn’t want to be like, 'Right, you WILL buy this bag!'. I just wanted to put it out there and just see what the reaction was, because at the end of the day, the whole bag idea didn’t work but they now do have this marketing idea that they can turn on its head and use it for something else.
Do I? I was always so worried about how I looked… I didn’t want to come across as some sad little girl who does nothing and, you know, cries over work. It was a big opportunity for me to do this and putting my idea into a store was a big challenge, and obviously it didn’t turn out as well as I hoped it would with the sales. But the overall thing that happened is that Sainsbury’s got a view of how it would work and I got experiences at Holborn that, you know, money can’t pay for, and this whole experience as well which I never would’ve had, ever, in my whole entire life, if I hadn’t done this.
One lady I spoke with, the lady with short brown hair who I spoke to for 10 minutes… I went up to her and had my tip card with me [Feed your family for a fiver recipe cards] and she was like 'Oh, it's lovely' but she had all these kids and they all finish school at different times and she doesn’t have the time to come in, and she was like, 'I always picks the cards up but I can never find it' and I was like 'Aha! Come this way!'. And her son also wouldn’t eat the recipe as he was vegetarian, and so, Sainsbury’s do vegetarian cards, maybe in the future, she can find a bag. But she was saying that the idea was fantastic, it’s just that the recipes are something that people are a bit picky about; I’ve noticed customers like to pick their own ingredients, they don’t like to say, 'I have to buy that ingredient, or I have to buy that carrot' – 'I want to pick my own carrots, and my own celery'. It’s kind of like a quality thing, because people think, 'If I've touched it, I know it's alright, I can have it and it’s mine' whereas some people are more open and saying, 'I will have that bag and it's fine'.
The majority of people were saying it’s just fantastic, putting it all in one place, but the recipes weren’t to everyone’s liking, which is understandable. So it was nice to get feedback from customers; it made me feel a bit better about the whole thing.
Everyone always says that, 'Right no more ideas Becky, no more ideas'! I think I'm all idea'd out! Until it sinks in that this has all really happened, my brain can’t really do anything else.
It’s been fine. It’s funny ‘cause it comes across that I just have a really boring job, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t like it. It is a little bit weird at first, but it’s nice to have people asking, ‘When’s it coming on TV?’.
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