Supermarket Sleuths: 'The little-known supermarket feature I discovered at my local Coles'

I spend at lot of time in supermarkets. People have various pastimes, and this has always been mine – which is why this Supermarket Sleuths series is so fun to write.

I just love everything about them, and my partner Shamus is equally enchanted with every tiny detail of supermarkets, grocery displays and how best to food shop and save.

Yet neither of us has even noticed this one feature at our local Coles supermarket until just recently.

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During one of our many shopping trips, I looked up and noticed a young man looking at something at the start of one of the aisles.

I thought he was a worker and I've been helping my son look for a job, which is why I think I noticed him.

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He was looking at a list that was hanging at the start of the aisle and at first I assumed it was something only employees accessed, perhaps to help guide them as they restocked shelves.

I waited until he was done then wandered over and couldn't believe my eyes.

It was a list of the most popular grocery items and the aisle in which they can be found.

I mean, what? I didn't even know it existed.

I have spent years – decades – wandering up and down aisles at my local Coles, Woolies and Aldi stores looking for items.

There are times when I learn my local store setups in great detail, only for them to change them around and ruin my shopping experience for the next few weeks.

All this time I could have simply referred to the list, which is titled, "Looking for something? Store guide."

The list doesn't include every single item in every aisle. That would be quite a large document and completely insane.

Instead, it lists the most popular products in alphabetical order and most often, you can gauge where similar products are located by following this guide.

Air freshener? Aisle 10.

Band-Aids? Aisle 8.

Honey? Aisle 1.

Tea? Aisle 3.

This in addition to the large signs in each aisle indicating the categories of food that can be found in stores makes your shopping experience much easier!

Using this list does ruin some of the fun of discovering items that weren't top of mind but could form part of your grocery list in the future, which is why I often prefer a bit of a wander.

However, this year I have set myself the goal of only buying items on my list, strictly, without deviation. If I want to add something, I have to save it for my next shop.

So this handy printed guide will help me stick to that, hopefully.

Of course, Coles and Woolies do include aisle guides on their apps, but my shopping list is on my app so this list makes things much easier!

Aldi seems to prefer to leave us to find items ourselves, although like Coles and Woolies, most Aldi stores stick to a similar set up, making it much easier to find things.

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