Broccoli World

A new supermarket was opened in South Kensington this week. Broccoli World has opened in direct competition with Safeway's on High Street Kensington and Sainsbury's on Cromwell road. Broccoli World will sell a range of food products, but will concentrate on Broccoli and products that contain large quantities of Broccoli.

The store was built after an intensive study showed that there was a large gap in the market for a specialist Broccoli provider in the area. The study included a survey, to which over 4 people were questioned. The survey showed that 20% of the South Kensington population had to travel over 5 miles to get their Broccoli and would definitely use a Broccoli superstore if was available closer to home.

The store opened on Sunday to massive crowds. On the first day there was a sale where each product was discounted according to how much broccoli it contained. So a product containing 50% broccoli would be discounted by 50%, one with 30% broccoli would have a 30% discount etc. This proved an enormous success with the whole stock of raw broccoli being bought out within 5mins of the store opening.

Also available at the opening party was a free buffet with a wide range of foodstuffs containing broccoli. There was: raw broccoli, boiled broccoli, fried broccoli, deep fried broccoli, deep fried broccoli in olive oil, deep fried broccoli in batter, deep fried broccoli in french dressing, over 50 types of broccoli pie, a broccoli flan, broccoli sandwiches, broccoli wine, chopped broccoli, chopped broccoli in tomato sauce and a fine selection of broccoli flavoured confectionery, to name but a few. The buffet was run throughout the opening day and was appreciated by all.

A stage was set up in the centre of the store to display the talents of various broccoli-related performers. First on the bill was the Brazilian broccoli dancing quartet. This group of seven dancers, put on a fantastic acrobatic display. They all danced around doing back flips, jumping over each other and standing on one another's heads, all dressed up as bunches of broccoli.

The audience was awed into submission, by the vocal talents of Reg D'Polalio, who sang 4 heart-rending songs about broccoli. He started with the quite beautiful "My love left me for a broccoli merchant; (Doesn't see know it gives my heart a dent), and moved even the stoniest of watches with his top ten hit single, "It's you I've come to see; (I've brought a bunch of broccoli)".

An all-night party started with the introduction of the Drum'n'Bass duo Bio-Vegetable Breakdown, who did a live set until 11pm when the mighty Veg Master took over the decks and kept the party rocking until the party closed at 1.30am.

The store has over 200,000m2 of floor space covering 4 floors. The owners of Broccoli World, Veg-U-Like, have decided that the store will have a free cinema showing a wide variety of broccoli connected films. The cinema will be free to all shoppers at BW, but due to the popularity of some of the films being shown it is advisable to turn up early in order to get a good seat.

Veg-U-Like expects to get over 20,000 customers per day purchasing over 200 tons of Broccoli. With a catchment area covering all of central London and most of the surrounding suburbs almost 40% of Greater London will regularly shop at the South Kensington branch of BW. The shop cost over £200million to build and is predicted to have a turnover of about £3,000 per annum with a profit of almost 1%. Broccoli World is likely to be a huge success and will bring new prosperity to the dilapidated and run-down South Kensington.

[Copyright Ross Newell 1998]