Asda are making it easier for shopping singles to meet with their Valentine’s Day red baskets
Reporter Tom Mack looking for love in Asda, Fosse Park
This year, to help lonely singletons find one another, Asda has hit upon a novel idea for Valentine’s Day – red shopping baskets.
Forget dating apps – true love could be lying in wait for you in the supermarket pet food aisle.
To test the theory, I was sent to Asda at Fosse Park to immerse myself in the grocery dating scene.
I arrive just before 10am on Valentine’s Day, grab a red basket to advertise that I’m “looking for love” and set off into the store, making a quick U-turn after wandering into the toy aisle.
After finding a friendly bloke in the card aisle to take a quick picture, I begin meandering around, seemingly the only person with a red basket, seemingly destined to be alone forever.
To increase my chances, I think, I should probably put some groceries in my basket – don’t want it to look like I’ve only come to pull.
I decide against getting any meat – partly because I’d only been shopping the day before and didn’t need any, but also in case it was a turn-off for any vegans.
I spy some coleslaw. Everyone loves coleslaw.
I grab a pot and put it in my basket, but then realise it’s got a yellow label on it – it’s reduced. I look cheap. But I really want it by this point, so I keep it in my basket.
I grab a plastic bottle of oil from the next aisle. Pure sunflower oil can only say good things about a man. There’s nothing sexier than oil.
There’s some spaghetti. I grab a pack. That’s romantic – like in Lady and the Tramp. I think I’m doing pretty well on the signals I’m sending.
But there’s not much point when there’s no one else in the store with a red basket. I carry on milling around, getting the chance to go up some of the aisles I never usually go into.
They have shelves full of all kinds of dehydrated pot snacks. I was born in the 70s, and for most of my life, it was just Pot Noodles – nothing else. Simpler times.
I pick up some bread. It could potentially put off a stunning gluten-intolerant woman and ruin my chances of eternal bliss, but I am getting low on bread.
In the cereal aisle, I finally spot another red basket, but it’s a young man with his friends.
I could go up to him, say I’m a journalist and ask how it’s going so I can put it in the story. But he’s clearly not taking it seriously, I think to myself, hypocritically.
By this point, I’m nearly at the booze aisle – the furthest corner of the store. In the interests of thorough, in-depth journalism, I spin around and do another weave through the food aisles, noting how many people go to the supermarket in their dressing gowns these days.
The boy with the red basket walks past me with his friends, turns a corner and starts giggling. I feel suddenly self-conscious.
They think I’m a lonely old loser trying to find love in Asda at 10am on a Saturday morning.
As I stand at the checkout queue, I put the stupid red basket down by my feet and hope nobody can see it. It’s all been nothing but a humiliating failure.
Part of me wants to just leave the basket where it is and flee. But I actually really do need bread.