Hi Benjamin,

Thank you for your submission.

I've spoken to our shop manager about the possibility of meal deals however she reports that at the moment this unfortunately isn't financially viable for us. Big supermarkets all make losses on their meal deals but the reason they continue to sell them is because they are used to drive footfall for other products. We are not naive to the fact that some students consider the SUSU shop to be overpriced, but we actually have many items that are very low cost. For example, you can purchase a sandwitch for £1.50, drink for 49p and a packet of crisps for 39p which comes to a total of £2.68. Although this isn't our top range of products, it does reflect the fact that the shop has a variety of options to suit all budgets. I believe that SUSU has work to do to raise the profile of these lower cost options, which is something that we will work on moving forwards. I would like to see a lunchtime meal deal in the shop, so if there becomes a situation where it is financially viable for us I will certainly push for it.

With regards to the queues at busy times, I appreciate that they are long but the tills are staffed accordingly and the queue moves constantly and very quickly. I'm unsure what you mean by saying that the queues are unsafe, but if you are able to expand on that point I would be more than happy to answer (my email is aupres@soton.ac.uk). In terms of the unsatisfactory customer service you received at the till we apologise for that, however if you let us know about incidents like this closer to the time we can have a conversation with the member of staff in question.

 

Best wishes,

Steve Gore, VP Sports

University of Southampton Students' Union.