Neeli Malik
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100 Days of Groceries - Original 2020 Photoblog

100 Days of Groceries is a photography project, exploring the aesthetics of buying groceries, documenting mostly independently owned stores in which people can buy food; greengrocers, corner shops, newsagents, markets, butchers, bakeries, fishmongers, etc. Each post will document a different establishment. Some of the photographs are taken in passing, but some of them I visited specifically. Some documentations will be accompanied by text, either conversational interviews with the workers in the shops, or simply my own observations of the shop at the time. Read more about the project here.

Way2Save (May 2020)

Way2Save, High Street, Harlesden, May 2020


I interviewed Ali Ulger, one of the managers in the Way2Save store. He’s been working here for nearly 13/14 years. At one point, they opened up a separate shop in Barking and he worked there for a little while but then returned to this store. It’s been nearly two years since he came back.

The boss has opened a couple of other branches, he says, he thinks they’ve got a branch in Neasden as well, but he’s never visited. Each shop is working independently from each other, although they are connected.
I asked Ali what he enjoyed about working at Way2Save: 

“Well, because I’ve been working here for a long period, I’m like the boss here. Boss left everything in my hands. So, most of the stuff goes through me, and that’s why I feel most comfortable. It’s easy for me to do it, because I don’t feel no pressure on me. There is not someone above me.”

Business-wise, he says, Harlesden is a good place for the shop because it’s got a mixed community. He proudly explains to me the layout of the shop:

“If you walk around the shop you see products, for example, from Romania in a separate aisle, Brazilian in a separate aisle. So, when they come, they can find the products from their community easily.” He calls it a ‘shop in a shop’ – because his customers looking for products from their own country only have to go one part of the store to find everything they need. 

I asked him if he’s ever experienced any difficulties in running the shop:

“There’s always something happening, like incidents, just happen all the time. Spend some time here and you will see it. So much things happen outside every day.”

He went on to talk about how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the business.

“At the moment it is coming back to normal. But when it was peak days, we couldn’t even cope with the customers because whatever delivery we get we couldn’t get it back into the shelves. We normally operate 24 hours, we ended up closing at 6pm, because we couldn’t put the products on the shelf. It was like end of world. So, people were like, grabbing, grabbing, shelves were empty. It was terrible, we felt so much pressure at that time. We couldn’t cope with it, so we closed at 6 o clock. There was no social distancing, people were rushing to grab stuff. But it’s coming back to normal. We now control the numbers coming in and out, so we don’t have people rushing in and out. It’s better for us. We’re more on top of it now. That time it happened suddenly, so it was out of control. It was crazy that time.”

I asked him if he had any hopes for the future, both for the store and himself. 
“For me, I’d like to run my own business, because I have so much experience. I’d wanna open up a grocery shop, because I’m good at this thing. For here? I try to keep the customers happy and keep the sales rising up, that’s my aim, that’s what I’m good at. That’s what the boss expects from us.”

Neeli MalikComment