I really wanted to give this review four or five s...

I really wanted to give this review four or five stars; since I have had many years of great experiences here. However, I have noticed over the past couple years, that things are slowly slipping, causing me to shop elsewhere, more often. This is a very clean store! It is obvious upon entering, that management takes pride in the condition of the property! The place is sparkling clean, and I like that! I will also say, that the majority of the staff is very friendly and helpful. The one exception, being the meat department, where I am met with lots of attitude whenever I have a question or request, and I don t appreciate it, AT ALL (- 1 star)! The store manager here is VERY friendly, and her own personal customer service skills are truly extraordinary! I m hoping some of that starts rubbing off on the meat department staff! Big Y sales promotions lately, are terrible! I realize that this is more reflective of the company as a whole, and may be more of a corporate issue, than an issue about this particular location, but since this is the location I frequent the most, I can t ignore it! The span of time, between sales on certain products seems to be increasing, sometimes you have to wait four or five weeks before items go on sale again, when that gap used to be much shorter! This is due to their new lower pricing strategy, I m sure! The issue is, that the lower price on certain items, is not nearly as low as the sale price of that item, when it finally does go on sale. So, by widening the span between an item going on sale, they ve got you buying it at a higher price, more often, despite touting their lower price savings . Also, entire categories of food, such as cheeses or sour cream, or tuna, or ketchup, etc., have weeks where not one brand is on sale! In the past, they would have at least one, maybe two brands within a food category on sale. Example: if Starkist Tuna wasn t on sale that week, Bumble Bee or Big Y brand would be, so at least you could get some brand of tuna on sale, with the new sales/pricing strategy, some weeks you look at the tuna section, and NO brands are on sale! The same goes for cheeses in the dairy section, etc. They have also cut many name brand flavors, sizes, and varieties of certain products that are still being manufactured, to make more shelf space for comparable Big Y brand items. I m seeing less and less space dedicated to the full range of product offerings of certain name brands. It s frustrating, because sometimes you want a smaller size of a particular item, that you still CAN find at a competitor, but it s not available at Big Y. An example is Cream of Wheat Original cereal. They used to have two sizes, at Big Y now, you can only get the larger size, but other stores and online, still have the smaller size box available. They are forcing you to spend more, on an item, by not offering the smaller size. I always liked to get ALL of my grocery shopping done at once, at Big Y, but now, with all of these changes, I have to make several stops, at their competition, to get the items they no longer choose to carry (-1 star).