Alan Gowans, the manager of a large supermarket

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BBC Learning English
Talk about English
Private lives - Part 7
Alan Gowans, the manager of
a large supermarket
This programme was first broadcast in 1997

Sue: In Private lives today we meet Alan Gowans. He’s the manager of a large
supermarket owned by Sainsbury's, one of the biggest food store companies in
Britain. During the programme, we’ll join Alan in his office and on the shop
floor. We’ll hear him talk about the kind of people who shop in the
supermarket, and what they buy. But before we look at what’s on offer in
British supermarkets, we learn a little about Alan’s life. Alan was born in a small
town on the west coast of Scotland, where he and his brothers went to the local
secondary school. The family lived in a council house - basic housing, owned by
the state.

Clip Alan Gowans
I was born in Armadale in Scotland. I’ve got me mother and father and three brothers. A
typical upbringing. We lived on a council estate. We went to the local comprehensive. In terms
of hobbies at a younger age - was obviously football mad. I joined a pipe band as a drummer -
that took a lot of time in my youth.





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Sue: Every Saturday and Sunday, Alan’s pipe band took part in local competitions.
And when Alan and his schoolfriends weren’t playing traditional Scottish music,
they listened to the latest records by the rock group Status Quo. Classical music
was “softy” - it wasn’t tough.

Clip Alan Gowans
Now, really I’m quite happy to listen to most music. Probably as a child I would never have
dreamt about getting involved in classical - we always thought it was a bit softy. But I
thoroughly enjoy it now.


Sue: After he left school, Alan became a trainee metallurgist. But a possible career
studying metals came to an end when the company he was working for ran into
financial difficulties, and he was made redundant. Alan joined the Royal Navy as
an officer, and met Judy, who became his wife.

Clip Alan Gowans
When I left the pipe band, I gave up drumming for quite a while. And certainly, when I got
married one of my dreams was to have a drum kit - which I eventually bought. But
subsequently I had to sell it about 8 months later because the next door neighbours and half the
street were banging on my door, demanding that it went - so it did. But one day, I will
ultimately get a drum kit again.


Sue: Alan left the Royal Navy after two and a half years, and became a trainee
manager at Sainsbury’s. Now he’s one of their most successful store managers,
and the branch he’s in charge of is typical of many other large, out-of-town


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supermarkets in affluent parts of Britain. Most British cities and towns have
“out-of-town shopping centres”. These have a large supermarket with a large
car park. There’s also often a petrol station, a Do It Yourself hardware store,
one or two fast-food restaurants, and sometimes a multi-screen cinema! Alan
shows us into his office.

Clip Alan Gowans
This is my office, rather small and cramped considering the size of the building! On my desk I
have a VDU, which enables me to access into the systems which we have within the store. And
above the desk, I have my various files - the most important one being my “profit and loss”
account! And also in the office, we’ve got a CCTV - that’s an internal television system that
allows us to monitor various areas within the store. So, at the moment it’s focused in on one of
our checkouts and checkout operators.


Sue: There are 30 checkouts in this supermarket, where customers pay for their
goods. Checkout operators pass each item over an electronic scanner which
reads the price, and produces an itemised bill for the customer. There are over
20,000 commodities on sale in the store - including fresh fruit, vegetables, meat
and fish, frozen food, bread and cakes, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and
baby foods. There’s also cleaning products, cooking utensils, children’s toys and
newspapers. Alan describes his customers as “up-market” - they can afford to
buy expensive products. They also don’t have much time to shop or cook, so
they tend to buy a lot of ready made meals.





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Clip Alan Gowans
Usually the type of shopper we have are interested in getting out of the store as quickly as
possible. That may seem a funny thing, but time is precious for people that live round here. We
have a lot of professional types, working mums, and so therefore they want to come into the
store, buy, and leave as quickly as possible. As a result of that, we sell a great deal of ready
prepared products, so that could be ready prepared salad packs, ready meals - so that you
basically stick the product in the oven - and it’s on the table within half an hour or so.


Sue: At home, like many British people, Alan and his wife enjoy eating food from
other countries. (If Alan cooks at all, it’s with a wok - a large bowl-shaped pan,
used for Chinese-style cooking.) However, Alan and Judy do sometimes sit
down to a traditional British Sunday lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Clip Alan Gowans
As far as my own shopping habits are concerned, I afraid I don’t tend to get too involved in
that having worked in a supermarket all day, I tend to leave the shopping to my wife! In terms
of the type of product that we tend to buy at home, our eating habits have changed over the
years, I used to be “a meat and two veg man” - a typical British pastime - but recently we’ve
tended to move to things like pasta, that we eat quite a bit of. I have a wok so I now tend to
wok things - my wife is very happy about that because at least I’m doing it! We do have a
Sunday lunch from time to time and again, we do eat out, generally maybe once or twice a
week.






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Sue: Alan isn’t tempted to do any shopping after a hard day’s work running the
supermarket! As manager, he’s responsible for making a profit. To make a
profit, he must ensure that the supermarket shelves are well-stocked with
whatever customers want to buy. Today, Alan predicts good sales of meat
which can be cooked on a barbeque outside, salad, drinks and ice- cream.

Clip Alan Gowans
The weather today is very sunny - I believe it’s gonna be about 25 degrees outside. And we
really need to react to the customer needs. They will be looking to have barbecue products,
they’ll be looking to be buying salad, they’ll be looking to buy drinks, they’ll be looking to buy
ice-cream, that type of product.


Sue: Eating outside is becoming more and more popular in Britain. Alan leads us
onto the shop floor, and as we walk along the long aisle of refrigerated meat,
we see staff unloading fresh packs of meat for summer evening barbeques. Then
we stop in the middle of another long aisle - here, there are shelves and shelves
of pet food.

Clip Alan Gowans
In Britain, we’re somewhat renowned for our pets. We now, within this store, have a display in
excess of 40 feet, full of canned cat food and dog food and other foods for other pets - such as
canaries! We do have very large sales on pet food within the company and that is reflected in
the type of footage that we actually have within every store. You can have chicken, you can
have liver, you can have beef, you can have pheasant, you can have combinations of beef and
game - any sort of product that you can think of that your pet might like, I’m sure we can
supply it. Myself, I have a couple of canaries at home!


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Sue: As we walk back to his office, Alan says that he likes hearing the sound of
birdsong at home. Alan and his wife live on the outskirts of London in a
bungalow, with a very well-cared for green lawn. DIY - or Do It Yourself home
improvements - like putting up wallpaper - is not Alan’s favourite pastime!

Clip Alan Gowans
We’ve been married 14 years now and this is our 5th house. We live in a three bedroomed
bungalow, with a double garage. We have a fairly large-ish garden - which I delegate
everything to my wife - other than the lawn, which I do take great pride in my lawn and I’m
forever being told off for buying all this expensive fertilizer and lawn mowers etc. etc. But I do
like a green lawn and I work hard at making sure that that looks “the business”! As far as DIY
is concerned, you’re looking at the world’s worst DIY - we had to do some decorating, I tried
desperately to get a decorator in to do it, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get one believe
it or not, so I had to do it myself. I’ve never been so stressed in my life in putting wall paper up
- never again!


Sue: Alan would much rather relax in his home than decorate it. What does he enjoy
doing when he's not spending time at home? Listen.

Clip Alan Gowans
When I get in from work, it really depends on the time of year, my great hobby is golf so given
half a chance, I will grab my clubs and disappear off down to the golf course for a round.
Fortunately, my wife plays so she can’t be described as a “golf widow”. But obviously, if the
weather’s adverse or it’s in the winter, generally, I’ll head straight for a gin and tonic or a beer,
have a sit down, have a chat, and then either we’ll have dinner or we’ll go out to the pictures
or the theatre or whatever the case might be.


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Sue: And to end the programme, Alan talks about the kind of skills he thinks you
need to be a good supermarket manager - and what he really enjoys about the
job: the people.

Clip Alan Gowans
To be successful, or a good manager with Sainsbury’s, ultimately you require man-
management skills. You’re dealing with 400 people, and that in effect means that you’ve got to
have good communication skills, motivational skills, and that will assist greatly. On top of that,
you’ve got to have a feel for the business, but I enjoy the job. I enjoy the job because
ultimately I like people, they’re a great bunch to work for - you’ve got to have a sense of
humour, you’ve got to work hard because we do tend to work fairly long hours and by that I
mean say 45 hours a week. But I enjoy it - food retail is fast, it’s exciting, it’s extremely
competitive, and great fun to be in.