It would help if they kept their shelves stocked

Company plans to cut prices at Giant Supermakets.

"It is now time for us to focus our efforts on strengthening our retail competitive position, particularly in the United States," Mr. Moberg said. "We will apply our consumer insight much more actively to improve our product, service and price offering in order to increase customer loyalty."

The company plans to lower prices and rely less on promotions in its U.S. stores, a move that has turned around the grocery chain Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, said Ton van Ooijen, an analyst with Kepler Equities in the Netherlands. The strategy was put in place in late 2003, and last quarter, sales at the chain rose 10 percent.

"I've never seen that before," he said. "It was very impressive."

Having little to choose from, I shop at Giant and it pretty much stinks. On Sunday afternoons, the store's busiest day, whole sections of the produce department are bare.

Worse, you have to keep an eagle eye out for the "sell by" date. I've often found items such as diary products and meats that are past their expiration dates. Once I even saw an extremely dodgy piece of meat for sale with its "sell by" label torn off. As it was somewhere between grey and green in color, I decided against purchasing it.